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Title: Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxide to reduce parasitic absorption and improve stability in n–i–p perovskite solar cells for tandems

Abstract

Two critical issues associated with semi-transparent, n–i–p perovskite solar cells for 2-terminal tandem devices are parasitic absorption and long-term instability associated with the widely used spiro-OMeTAD and MoOx hole transport and buffer layers, respectively. Here in this work, we present an alternative hole contact bilayer that consists of a 30 nm undoped layer of spiro-TTB in conjunction with 9 nm of air-stable vanadium oxide (VOx ) deposited via atomic layer deposition. The low absorption of UV and visible light in this bilayer results in the fabrication of a semi-transparent perovskite cell with 18.9 mA cm -2 of photocurrent, a 14% increase compared to the 16.6 mA cm -2 generated in a control device with 150 nm of doped spiro-OMeTAD. The ALD VOx buffer layer shows promise as a stable alternative to MoOx ; an unencapsulated Cs0.17FA0.83Pb(Br0.17 I 0.83)3 device with ALD VOx and ITO as the top contact maintains its efficiency following 1000 hours at 85 °C in a N2 environment. Lastly, we use transfer matrix modeling of the optimized perovskite stack to predict its optical performance in a monolithic tandem cell with heterojunction silicon.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  2. Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  3. Stanford Univ., CA (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  4. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  5. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
OSTI Identifier:
1671795
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1509515
Grant/Contract Number:  
EE0008167; EE0008154
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Sustainable Energy & Fuels
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 3; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 2398-4902
Publisher:
Royal Society of Chemistry
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
14 SOLAR ENERGY

Citation Formats

Raiford, James A., Belisle, Rebecca A., Bush, Kevin A., Prasanna, Rohit, Palmstrom, Axel F., McGehee, Michael D., and Bent, Stacey F. Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxide to reduce parasitic absorption and improve stability in n–i–p perovskite solar cells for tandems. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1039/c9se00081j.
Raiford, James A., Belisle, Rebecca A., Bush, Kevin A., Prasanna, Rohit, Palmstrom, Axel F., McGehee, Michael D., & Bent, Stacey F. Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxide to reduce parasitic absorption and improve stability in n–i–p perovskite solar cells for tandems. United States. https://doi.org/10.1039/c9se00081j
Raiford, James A., Belisle, Rebecca A., Bush, Kevin A., Prasanna, Rohit, Palmstrom, Axel F., McGehee, Michael D., and Bent, Stacey F. 2019. "Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxide to reduce parasitic absorption and improve stability in n–i–p perovskite solar cells for tandems". United States. https://doi.org/10.1039/c9se00081j. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1671795.
@article{osti_1671795,
title = {Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxide to reduce parasitic absorption and improve stability in n–i–p perovskite solar cells for tandems},
author = {Raiford, James A. and Belisle, Rebecca A. and Bush, Kevin A. and Prasanna, Rohit and Palmstrom, Axel F. and McGehee, Michael D. and Bent, Stacey F.},
abstractNote = {Two critical issues associated with semi-transparent, n–i–p perovskite solar cells for 2-terminal tandem devices are parasitic absorption and long-term instability associated with the widely used spiro-OMeTAD and MoOx hole transport and buffer layers, respectively. Here in this work, we present an alternative hole contact bilayer that consists of a 30 nm undoped layer of spiro-TTB in conjunction with 9 nm of air-stable vanadium oxide (VOx ) deposited via atomic layer deposition. The low absorption of UV and visible light in this bilayer results in the fabrication of a semi-transparent perovskite cell with 18.9 mA cm -2 of photocurrent, a 14% increase compared to the 16.6 mA cm -2 generated in a control device with 150 nm of doped spiro-OMeTAD. The ALD VOx buffer layer shows promise as a stable alternative to MoOx ; an unencapsulated Cs0.17FA0.83Pb(Br0.17 I 0.83)3 device with ALD VOx and ITO as the top contact maintains its efficiency following 1000 hours at 85 °C in a N2 environment. Lastly, we use transfer matrix modeling of the optimized perovskite stack to predict its optical performance in a monolithic tandem cell with heterojunction silicon.},
doi = {10.1039/c9se00081j},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1671795}, journal = {Sustainable Energy & Fuels},
issn = {2398-4902},
number = 6,
volume = 3,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
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Cited by: 65 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: (a) Integrated area ratios of the PbI2 (001) and perovskite (100) XRD peaks before and after 250 cycles of ALD VOx processing at 80 °C and 100 °C. Results are presented for a bare perovskite film, as well as those with either a spiro-OMeTAD or spiro-TTB interfacial layermore » (b) A comparison of the absorption spectra of undoped spiro-TTB (30 nm), spiro-TTB/VOx (9 nm) and doped spiro-OMeTAD (150 nm)/VOx on quartz (c) AFM images of spiro-TTB and spiroTTB/VOx on a Cs0.17FA0.83Pb(Br0.17I0.83)3 perovskite film over a 1 µm x 1 µm scan area. Root mean square roughness (Rq) values are reported in the upper right hand corner of each image« less

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Works referencing / citing this record:

Enhanced Nucleation of Atomic Layer Deposited Contacts Improves Operational Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells in Air
journal, October 2019


Monolithic Perovskite/Si Tandem Solar Cells: Pathways to Over 30% Efficiency
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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.