Despite the high efficiency of over 21% reported for emerging thin film perovskite solar cells, one of the key issues prior to their commercial deployment is to attain their long term stability under ambient and outdoor conditions. The instability in perovskite is widely conceived to be humidity induced due to the water solubility of its initial precursors, which leads to decomposition of the perovskite crystal structure; however, we note that humidity alone is not the major degradation factor and it is rather the photon dose in combination with humidity exposure that triggers the instability. In our experiment, which is designed to decouple the effect of humidity and light on perovskite degradation, we investigate the shelf-lifetime of CH3NH3PbI3 films in the dark and under illumination under high humidity conditions (Rel. H. > 70%). We note minor degradation in perovskite films stored in a humid dark environment whereas upon exposure to light, the films undergo drastic degradation, primarily owing to the reactive TiO2/perovskite interface and also the surface defects of TiO2. To enhance its air-stability, we incorporate CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite in a polymer (poly-vinylpyrrolidone, PVP) matrix which retained its optical and structural characteristics in the dark for ∼2000 h and ∼800 h in room light soaking, significantly higher than a pristine perovskite film, which degraded completely in 600 h in the dark and in less than 100 h when exposed to light. We attribute the superior stability of PVP incorporated perovskite films to the improved structural stability of CH3NH3PbI3 and also to the improved TiO2/perovskite interface upon incorporating a polymer matrix. Charge injection from the polymer embedded perovskite films has also been confirmed by fabricating solar cells using them, thereby providing a promising future research pathway for stable and efficient perovskite solar cells.
In this report, a facile solution casting technique was used to fabricate polymer blend electrolytes of chitosan (CS):poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO):NH4SCN with high electrochemical stability (2.43V). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to investigate the polymer electrolyte formation. For the electrochemical property analysis, cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques were carried out. Referring to the FTIR spectra, a complex formation between the added salt and CS:PEO was deduced by considering the decreasing and shifting of FTIR bands intensity in terms of functional groups. The CS:PEO:NH4SCN electrolyte was found to be electrochemically stable as the applied voltage linearly swept up to 2.43V. The cyclic voltammogram has presented a wide potential window without showing any sign of redox peaks on the electrode surface. The proved mechanisms of charge storage in these fabricated systems were found to be double layer charging. The EIS analysis showed the existence of bulk resistance, wherein the semicircle diameter decreased with increasing salt concentration. The calculated maximum DC conductivity value was observed to be 2.11 × 10−4 S/cm for CS:PEO incorporated with 40 wt% of NH4SCN salt. The charged species in CS:PEO:NH4SCN electrolytes were considered to be predominantly ionic in nature. This was verified from transference number analysis (TNM), in which ion and electron transference numbers were found to be tion = 0.954 and tel = 0.045, respectively. The results obtained for both ion transference number and DC conductivity implied the possibility of fabricating electrolytes for electrochemical double layer capacitor (EDLC) device application. The specific capacitance of the fabricated EDLC was obtained from the area under the curve of the CV plot.
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