The effect of electron-and hole-selective contacts in the final cell performance of hybrid lead halide perovskite, CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 , solar cells has been systematically analyzed by impedance spectroscopy. Complete cells with compact TiO 2 and spiro-OMeTAD as electron-and hole-selective contacts have been compared with incomplete cells without one or both selective contacts to highlight the specific role of each contact. It has been described how selective contacts contribute to enhance the cell FF and how the hole-selective contact is mainly responsible for the high V oc in this kind of device. We have determined that the recombination rate is mainly governed by the selective contacts. This fact has important implication for the future optimization of perovskite solar cells. Finally, we have developed a method to analyze the results obtained, and it has been applied for three different electron-selecting materials: TiO 2 , ZnO, and CdS.
SECTION: Energy Conversion and Storage; Energy and Charge Transport
The development of medium-bandgap solar cell absorber materials is of interest for the design of devices such as tandem solar cells and building-integrated photovoltaics. The recently developed perovskite solar cells can be suitable candidates for these applications. At present, wide bandgap alkylammonium lead bromide perovskite absorbers require a high-temperature sintered mesoporous TiO2 photoanode in order to function efficiently, which makes them unsuitable for some of the above applications. Here, we present for the first time highly efficient wide bandgap planar heterojunction solar cells based on the structurally related formamidinium lead bromide. We show that this material exhibits much longer diffusion lengths of the photoexcited species than its methylammonium counterpart. This results in planar heterojunction solar cells exhibiting power conversion efficiencies approaching 7%. Hence, formamidinium lead bromide is a strong candidate as a wide bandgap absorber in perovskite solar cells.
Efficient electrical doping of organic semiconductors is a necessary prerequisite for the fabrication of high performance organic electronic devices. In this work, we study p-type doping of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) with 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F 4 TCNQ) spin-cast from two different solvents. Using electron diffraction, we find strong dopant-induced π−π-stacking for films from the solvent chloroform, but not from chlorobenzene. This image is confirmed and expanded by the analysis of vibrational features of P3HT and polaron absorptions using optical spectroscopy. Here, a red-shifted polaron absorption is found in doped films from chloroform, caused by a higher conjugation length of the polymer backbone. These differences result in a higher conductivity of films from chloroform. We use optical spectroscopy on the corresponding blend solutions to shed light on the origin of this effect and propose a model to explain why solutions of doped P3HT reveal more aggregation of charged molecules in chlorobenzene, whereas more order is finally observed in dried films from chloroform. Our study emphasizes the importance of solvent parameters exceeding the bare solubility of pure dopant and host material for the preparation of highly conductive doped films.
We study two types of water/alcohol-soluble aliphatic amines, polyethylenimine (PEI) and polyethylenimine-ethoxylated (PEIE), for their suitability as electron injection layers in solution-processed blue fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is used to determine the nominal thickness of the polymer layers while ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy is carried out to determine the induced work-function change of the silver cathode. The determined work-function shifts are as high as 1.5 eV for PEI and 1.3 eV for PEIE. Furthermore, atomic force microscopy images reveal that homogeneous PEI and PEIE layers are present at nominal thicknesses of about 11 nm. Finally, we solution prepare blue emitting polymer-based OLEDs using PEI/PEIE in combination with Ag as cathode layers. Luminous efficiency reaches 3 and 2.2 cd A(-1), whereas maximum luminance values are as high as 8000 and 3000 cd m(-2) for PEI and PEIE injection layers, respectively. The prepared devices show a comparable performance to Ca/Ag OLEDs and an improved shelf lifetime.
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