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Title: Defect tolerance in halide perovskites: A first-principles perspective

Abstract

In recent years, the impressive photovoltaic performance of halide perovskites has been commonly attributed to their defect tolerance. This attribution is seemingly intuitive and has been widely promoted in the field, though it has not been rigorously assessed. In this Perspective, we critically discuss the proposition of defect tolerance in halide perovskites based on first-principles calculations. We show that halide perovskites actually do suffer from defect-assisted nonradiative recombination, i.e., they are not defect tolerant. The nonradiative recombination rates in halide perovskites are comparable to or even greater than those in more conventional semiconductors. We note that to obtain accurate defect properties in halide perovskites, the level of theory and computational details are highly important, which was previously not sufficiently recognized. A distinctive feature of halide perovskites is that they can be grown with moderate defect densities using low-cost deposition techniques. But, similar to the case of conventional semiconductors, defect engineering is still key to improving the efficiency of perovskite solar cells.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Beijing Computational Science Research Center (China); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1845947
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1846821
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0010689
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Applied Physics
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 131; Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 0021-8979
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
14 SOLAR ENERGY

Citation Formats

Zhang, Xie, Turiansky, Mark E., Shen, Jimmy-Xuan, and Van de Walle, Chris G. Defect tolerance in halide perovskites: A first-principles perspective. United States: N. p., 2022. Web. doi:10.1063/5.0083686.
Zhang, Xie, Turiansky, Mark E., Shen, Jimmy-Xuan, & Van de Walle, Chris G. Defect tolerance in halide perovskites: A first-principles perspective. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0083686
Zhang, Xie, Turiansky, Mark E., Shen, Jimmy-Xuan, and Van de Walle, Chris G. Mon . "Defect tolerance in halide perovskites: A first-principles perspective". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0083686. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1845947.
@article{osti_1845947,
title = {Defect tolerance in halide perovskites: A first-principles perspective},
author = {Zhang, Xie and Turiansky, Mark E. and Shen, Jimmy-Xuan and Van de Walle, Chris G.},
abstractNote = {In recent years, the impressive photovoltaic performance of halide perovskites has been commonly attributed to their defect tolerance. This attribution is seemingly intuitive and has been widely promoted in the field, though it has not been rigorously assessed. In this Perspective, we critically discuss the proposition of defect tolerance in halide perovskites based on first-principles calculations. We show that halide perovskites actually do suffer from defect-assisted nonradiative recombination, i.e., they are not defect tolerant. The nonradiative recombination rates in halide perovskites are comparable to or even greater than those in more conventional semiconductors. We note that to obtain accurate defect properties in halide perovskites, the level of theory and computational details are highly important, which was previously not sufficiently recognized. A distinctive feature of halide perovskites is that they can be grown with moderate defect densities using low-cost deposition techniques. But, similar to the case of conventional semiconductors, defect engineering is still key to improving the efficiency of perovskite solar cells.},
doi = {10.1063/5.0083686},
journal = {Journal of Applied Physics},
number = 9,
volume = 131,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Mar 07 00:00:00 EST 2022},
month = {Mon Mar 07 00:00:00 EST 2022}
}

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