DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Bioinspired stability enhancement in deuterium-substituted organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells

Journal Article · · PNAS Nexus

Abstract In hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs), the reaction of hydrogens (H) located in the amino group of the organic A-site cations with their neighboring halides plays a central role in degradation. Inspired by the retarded biological activities of cells in heavy water, we replaced the light H atom with its abundant, twice-as-heavy, nonradioactive isotope, deuterium (D) to hamper the motion of H. This D substitution retarded the formation kinetics of the detrimental H halides in Pb-based PSCs, as well as the H bond-mediated oxidation of Sn2+ in Sn–Pb-based narrow-bandgap PSCs, evidenced by accelerated stability studies. A computational study indicated that the zero point energy of D-based formamidinium (FA) is lower than that of pristine FA. In addition, the smaller increase in entropy in D-based FA than in pristine FA accounts for the increased formation free energy of the Sn2+ vacancies, which leads to the retarded oxidation kinetics of Sn2+. In this study, we show that substituting active H with D in organic cations is an effective way to enhance the stability of PSCs without sacrificing photovoltaic (PV) performance. This approach is also adaptable to other stabilizing methods.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1975557
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5900-86171; pgad160
Journal Information:
PNAS Nexus, Journal Name: PNAS Nexus Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 2; ISSN 2752-6542
Publisher:
Oxford University PressCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (46)

Organic Cation-Dependent Degradation Mechanism of Organotin Halide Perovskites journal March 2016
Unraveling the Light-Induced Degradation Mechanisms of CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 Perovskite Films journal November 2017
Mechanisms and Suppression of Photoinduced Degradation in Perovskite Solar Cells journal November 2020
Semiempirical GGA-type density functional constructed with a long-range dispersion correction journal January 2006
Effect of the damping function in dispersion corrected density functional theory journal March 2011
Dipole moment and polarizability differences between NH3 and ND3 journal December 1967
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
Layer-by-Layer Degradation of Methylammonium Lead Tri-iodide Perovskite Microplates journal November 2017
Recent progress in inorganic tin perovskite solar cells journal January 2022
Effect of temperature on light induced degradation in methylammonium lead iodide perovskite thin films and solar cells journal January 2018
Understanding Degradation Mechanisms and Improving Stability of Perovskite Photovoltaics journal November 2018
First-Principles Study on the Oxygen–Light-Induced Iodide Vacancy Formation in FASnI 3 Perovskite journal June 2020
A-Site Effect on the Oxidation Process of Sn-Halide Perovskite: First-Principles Calculations journal September 2021
Cubic Perovskite Structure of Black Formamidinium Lead Iodide, α-[HC(NH 2 ) 2 ]PbI 3 , at 298 K journal July 2015
Real-Time Observation of Organic Cation Reorientation in Methylammonium Lead Iodide Perovskites journal August 2015
Electron–Rotor Interaction in Organic–Inorganic Lead Iodide Perovskites Discovered by Isotope Effects journal July 2016
How Strong Is the Hydrogen Bond in Hybrid Perovskites? journal December 2017
Investigating the Role of the Organic Cation in Formamidinium Lead Iodide Perovskite Using Ultrafast Spectroscopy journal February 2018
Incorporating Large A Cations into Lead Iodide Perovskite Cages: Relaxed Goldschmidt Tolerance Factor and Impact on Exciton–Phonon Interaction journal July 2019
Mechanism of Tin Oxidation and Stabilization by Lead Substitution in Tin Halide Perovskites journal August 2017
Mutations in a Single Signaling Pathway Allow Cell Growth in Heavy Water journal March 2020
Relative Stability of Hydrogen and Deuterium Bonds journal January 1996
Water-Accelerated Photooxidation of CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite journal March 2022
Competition between N−H and N−D Bond Cleavage in the Photodissociation of NH2D and ND2H journal June 2000
Uncertainties in Scaling Factors for ab Initio Vibrational Frequencies journal September 2005
Atomistic Origins of High-Performance in Hybrid Halide Perovskite Solar Cells journal April 2014
Fast oxygen diffusion and iodide defects mediate oxygen-induced degradation of perovskite solar cells journal May 2017
Accelerated degradation of methylammonium lead iodide perovskites induced by exposure to iodine vapour journal December 2016
Degradation mechanism of hybrid tin-based perovskite solar cells and the critical role of tin (IV) iodide journal May 2021
Consensus statement for stability assessment and reporting for perovskite photovoltaics based on ISOS procedures journal January 2020
Study on the stability of CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 films and the effect of post-modification by aluminum oxide in all-solid-state hybrid solar cells journal January 2014
Improvement of the humidity stability of organic–inorganic perovskite solar cells using ultrathin Al2O3 layers prepared by atomic layer deposition journal January 2015
Photo-oxidative degradation of methylammonium lead iodide perovskite: mechanism and protection journal January 2019
Amine additive reactions induced by the soft Lewis acidity of Pb 2+ in halide perovskites. Part I: evidence for Pb–alkylamide formation journal January 2019
Polarity differences between deuterated and normal molecules journal January 1958
A consistent and accurate ab initio parametrization of density functional dispersion correction (DFT-D) for the 94 elements H-Pu journal April 2010
Density‐functional thermochemistry. III. The role of exact exchange journal April 1993
Evaluation of Deuterium Isotope Effects in Normal-Phase LC-MS-MS Separations Using a Molecular Modeling Approach journal August 2004
Development of the Colle-Salvetti correlation-energy formula into a functional of the electron density journal January 1988
Ab initiomolecular dynamics for liquid metals journal January 1993
Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulation of the liquid-metal–amorphous-semiconductor transition in germanium journal May 1994
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set journal October 1996
Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple journal October 1996
A Eu 3+ -Eu 2+ ion redox shuttle imparts operational durability to Pb-I perovskite solar cells journal January 2019
Carrier lifetimes of >1 μs in Sn-Pb perovskites enable efficient all-perovskite tandem solar cells journal April 2019
Damp heat–stable perovskite solar cells with tailored-dimensionality 2D/3D heterojunctions journal April 2022