Organolead trihalide perovskite solar cells based upon the co-deposition of a combined Al2O3-perovskite layer at T < 110 °C are presented. We report an average PCE = 7.2% on a non-sintered Al2O3 scaffold in devices that have been manufactured from a perovskite precursor containing 5 wt% Al2O3 nanoparticles.

mesoporous stack-titania (m-TiO 2 ), zirconia (ZrO 2 ), carbon (C)-is printable, C-PSCs are ideal for large scale production and, interestingly, some features that prevent degradation, i.e., lack of metal cathode [9] and organic HTM, [10] are also responsible for the simpler manufacturing process, paving the way for C-PSCs to move quickly from the lab to the market. This module architecture not only uses low-cost materials but can be produced by equipment that has a very low-capital cost thus reducing the barrier to commercialization of perovskite modules. Constraining the grain growth of the perovskite completely within the three mesoporous structures enables crystallization of the perovskite over large areas without the need for dynamic drying [11,12] to mimic the spin coating process. [13] There have been some reports demonstrating that C-PSC modules can be produced by screen printing, via registration of the overlapping layers, and can deliver between 10 and 11% power conversion efficiency (PCE) on 10 × 10 cm 2 substrates, with active areas ranging from 47.6 [7,14] to 70 cm 2 , [15] and, in particular, showing over 1 year stability under illumination, as reported by Grancini et al. [7] These results for C-PSC modules are even more remarkable, considering that modules with comparable active areas (>45 cm 2 ) and different device architecture, yielded respectively 12.6% PCE on 50.6 cm 2 (FTO/c-TiO 2 /graphene+m-TiO 2 / GO-Li/perovskite/spiro-OMeTAD/Au), [16] 8.7% PCE on 60 cm 2 (ITO/PEDOT:PSS/perovskite/PCBM/Au), [17] and 4.3% PCE on 100 cm 2 (FTO/c-TiO 2 /m-TiO 2 /perovskite/spiro-OMeTAD/ Au) [11] ; moreover, the record for PSC modules overall is Microquanta's 16% PCE [18,19] on just 16.29 cm 2 aperture area (active area + dead area for interconnections).Upscaling C-PSC manufacture from 10 × 10 cm 2 to larger substrate dimensions, e.g., A4 size as in our case, is far from trivial. Spraying the TiO 2 blocking layer (BL) at temperatures as high as 300 °C causes the large substrates to crack in the worst case or to bend, compromising the thickness homogeneity over the substrate of the printed layers, mostly and more crucially for the thinnest of the three, the sub-micrometric m-TiO 2 . Any change in the layers' thickness across the substrate can affect the performance of individual cells constituting the module Perovskite solar cells based on an all printable mesoporous stack, made of overlapping titania, zirconia, and carbon layers, represent a promising device architecture for both simple, low-cost manufacture, and outstanding stability. Here a breakthrough in the upscaling of this technology is reported: Screen printed modules on A4 sized conductive glass substrates, delivering power conversion efficiency (PCE) ranging from 3 to 5% at 1 sun on an unprecedented 198 cm 2 active area. An increase in the PCE, due to higher V OC and fill factor, is demonstrated by patterning the TiO 2 blocking layer. Furthermore, an unexpected increase of the performance is observed over time, while storing the modules in the dark,...

In this report, we are presenting highly efficient and humidity-resistant perovskite solar cells (PSCs) using two new small molecule hole transporting materials (HTM) made from a cost-effective precursor anthanthrone (ANT) dye, namely ACE-ANT-ACE and TPA-ANT-TPA. We have systematically compared our newly developed HTMs with the conventional 2,2´,7,7´-tetrakis(N,N´-di-pmethoxyphenylamino)-9,9´-spirbiuorene (Spiro-OMeTAD). ACE-ANT-ACE and TPA-ANT-TPA were used as a dopant free HTMs in mesoscopic TiO 2 /CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 /HTM solid-state PSCs, and the

This paper describes the synthesis of a new, yellow triphenylamine dye, 4-[2-(4-diphenylaminophenyl) vinyl]benzoic acid] (6), with a sorption maximum at 380 nm in solution for which EQE data show shifts to 420 nm on sorption to TiO 2 . The performance of this dye has been measured in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) devices, showing h ¼ 2.6% for 1 cm 2 devices. Light soaking of (6) shows excellent long-term stability with <10% variation in device performance over 1800 h. Full characterization data are reported for ( 6) and the intermediates used in its synthesis including single-crystal X-ray structural analysis of all compounds. The paper also describes the ultra-fast dye sensitization and co-sensitization of TiO 2 photo-electrodes in 5 minutes using one or two dyes and the first example of ultra-fast tri-sensitization. The dyes tested include the ruthenium dye N719, the squaraine dye SQ1, the red triphenylamine dye 2-cyano-3-{4-[2-(4-diphenylaminophenyl)vinyl]phenyl}acrylic acid ( 5) and ( 6). DSC efficiencies of 7.5% have been achieved for 1 cm 2 devices co-sensitized using (6) and N719. These efficiencies exceed those recorded for single dye devices and EQE measurements confirm efficient photon capture from two or more dyes in a single photo-electrode. Photo-acoustic calorimetry (PAC) has also been used to measure the energy of the charge separation states formed for (6) and N719, showing a larger value (1.47 eV) for (6) compared to N719 (1.08 eV), whilst a TiO 2 film co-sensitized with both (6) and N719 gave an intermediate value (1.28 eV). These data have been used to calculate dye HOMO, LUMO and l max levels for (6) and N719 leading to important insights for future successful co-sensitization.

An extremely fast annealing technique for mixed-halide perovskite solar cells is presented. A white light pulse is used to crystallise a perovskite precursor in 1.15ms compared to 90 minutes using a conventional hotplate.

Perovskite solar cells have emerged as a promising and highly efficient solar technology. Despite efficiencies continuing to climb, the prospect of industrial manufacture is hampered by concerns regarding the safety...

A combination of high-resolution mapping techniques were developed to probe the homogeneity and defects of mesoscopic perovskite solar cells. Three types of cells using a one-step infiltration process with methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) or 5-ammoniumvaleric acid-MAPbI3 solutions, or two-step process with MAPbI3 solution were investigated. The correlation between photoluminescence, photocurrent, electroluminescence and Raman maps gives a detailed understanding of the different infiltration mechanisms, electronic contact at interfaces and effect on local photocurrent for the cells. One-step MAPbI3 cell has very limited infiltration of the perovskite solution which results in poor device performance. High loading of the mesopores of the TiO2 and ZrO2 scaffold is observed when using 5-ammoniumvaleric acid, but some micrometer-sized non-infiltrated areas remain due to dense carbon flakes hindering perovskite infiltration. The two-step cell has a complex morphology with features having either beneficial or detrimental effects on the local photocurrent. Our results provide key insights to achieve better infiltration and homogeneity of the perovskite film in mesoporous devices but can also serve further work on planar devices to develop efficient extraction layers. Besides, this multi-mapping approach allows the correlation of the local photo-physical properties of full perovskite devices, which would be challenging to obtain by other techniques.

Laser irradiation is used to generate PbI2 as a passivation technique for perovskite solar cells.