Exploration of high‐performance cathode materials for rechargeable aqueous Zn ion batteries (ZIBs) is highly desirable. The potential of molybdenum trioxide (MoO
3
) in other electrochemical energy storage devices has been revealed but held understudied in ZIBs. Herein, a demonstration of orthorhombic MoO
3
as an ultrahigh‐capacity cathode material in ZIBs is presented. The energy storage mechanism of the MoO
3
nanowires based on Zn
2+
intercalation/deintercalation and its electrochemical instability mechanism are particularly investigated and elucidated. The severe capacity decay of the MoO
3
nanowires during charging/discharging cycles arises from the dissolution and the structural collapse of MoO
3
in aqueous electrolyte. To this end, an effective strategy to stabilize MoO
3
nanowires by using a quasi‐solid‐state poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA)/ZnCl
2
gel electrolyte to replace the aqueous electrolyte is developed. The capacity retention of the assembled ZIBs after 400 charge/discharge cycles at 6.0 A g
−1
is significantly boosted, from 27.1% (in aqueous electrolyte) to 70.4% (in gel electrolyte). More remarkably, the stabilized quasi‐solid‐state ZIBs achieve an attracting areal capacity of 2.65 mAh cm
−2
and a gravimetric capacity of 241.3 mAh g
−1
at 0.4 A g
−1
, outperforming most of recently reported ZIBs.
CsPbI3 inorganic perovskite has exhibited some special properties particularly crystal structure distortion and quantum confinement effect, yet the poor phase stability of CsPbI3 severely hinders its applications. Herein, the nature of the photoactive CsPbI3 phase transition from the perspective of PbI6 octahedra is revealed. A facile method is also developed to stabilize the photoactive phase and to reduce the defect density of CsPbI3. CsPbI3 is decorated with multifunctional 4‐aminobenzoic acid (ABA), and steric neostigmine bromide (NGBr) is subsequently used to further mediate the thin films' surface (NGBr‐CsPbI3(ABA)). The ABA or NG cation adsorbed onto the grain boundaries/surface of CsPbI3 anchors the PbI6 octahedra via increasing the energy barriers of octahedral rotation, which maintains the continuous array of corner‐sharing PbI6 octahedra and kinetically stabilizes the photoactive phase CsPbI3. Moreover, the added ABA and NGBr not only interact with shallow‐ or deep‐level defects in CsPbI3 to significantly reduce defect density, but also lead to improved energy‐level alignment at the interfaces between the CsPbI3 and the charge transport layers. Finally, the champion NGBr‐CsPbI3(ABA)‐based inorganic perovskite solar cell delivers 18.27% efficiency with excellent stability. Overall, this work demonstrates a promising concept to achieve highly phase‐stabilized inorganic perovskite with suppressed defect density for promoting its optoelectronic applications.
Free-standing porous MoO nanowires with extraordinary capacitive performance are developed as high-performance electrodes for electrochemical capacitors. The as-obtained MoO electrode exhibits a remarkable capacitance of 424.4 mF cm with excellent electrochemical durability (no capacitance decay after 10 000 cycles at various scan rates).
Unlike Pb‐based perovskites, it is still a challenge for realizing the targets of high performance and stability in mixed Pb–Sn perovskite solar cells owing to grain boundary traps and chemical changes in the perovskites. In this work, proposed is the approach of in‐situ tin(II) inorganic complex antisolvent process for specifically tuning the perovskite nucleation and crystal growth process. Interestingly, uniquely formed is the quasi‐core–shell structure of Pb–Sn perovskite–tin(II) complex as well as heterojunction perovskite structure at the same time for achieving the targets. The core–shell structure of Pb–Sn perovskite crystals covered by a tin(II) complex at the grain boundaries effectively passivates the trap states and suppresses the nonradiative recombination, leading to longer carrier lifetime. Equally important, the perovskite heterostructure is intentionally formed at the perovskite top region for enhancing the carrier extraction. As a result, the mixed Pb–Sn low‐bandgap perovskite device achieves a high power conversion efficiency up to 19.03% with fill factor over 0.8, which is among the highest fill factor in high‐performance Pb–Sn perovskite solar cells. Remarkably, the device fail time under continuous light illumination is extended by over 18.5‐folds from 30 to 560 h, benefitting from the protection of the quasi‐core–shell structure.
Interfaces in perovskite solar cells
(PSCs) are closely related
to their power conversion efficiency (PCE) and stability. It is highly
desirable to minimize the interfacial nonradiative recombination losses
through rational interfacial engineering. Herein we develop an effective
and easily reproducible interface engineering strategy where three
mercaptobenzimidazole (MBI)-based molecules are employed to modify
the perovskite/electron transport layer (ETL) interface. MBI and MBI-OCH3 can not only passivate defects at surface and grain boundaries
(GBs) of perovskite films but can also improve energy level alignment
(ELA), which leads to enhanced PCE and stability. Consequently, the
PCE is improved from 19.5% for the control device to 21.2% for MBI-modified
device, which is among the best reported inverted MAPbI3-based PSCs. In contrast, incorporation of MBI-NO2 increases
defect density and negligibly influences the energy level alignment.
This work indicates that defect passivation and ELA modulation can
be achieved simultaneously through modulating functional groups in
interface modification molecules.
Electron donors and acceptors in organic solar cells (OSCs) shall strike a favorable vertical phase separation that acceptors and donors have sufficient contact and gradient accumulation near the cathodes and anodes, respectively. Random mixing of donors/acceptors at surface will result in charge accumulation and severe recombination for low carrier‐mobility organic materials. However, it is challenging to tune the vertical distribution in bulk‐heterojunction films as they are usually made from a well‐mixed donor/acceptor solution. Here, for the first time, it presents with solid evidence that the commonly used 1‐chloronaphthalene (CN) additive can tune the donor/acceptor vertical distribution and establish the mechanism. Different from the previous understanding that ascribed the efficiency enhancement brought by CN to the improved molecular stacking/crystallization, it is revealed that the induced vertical distribution is the dominant factor leading to the significantly increased performance. Importantly, the vertical distribution tunability is effective in various hot nonfullerene OSC systems and creates more channels for the collection of dissociated carriers at corresponding organic/electrode interfaces, which contributes the high efficiency of 18.29%. This study of the material vertical distribution and its correlation with molecular stacking offers methods for additives selection and provides insights for the understanding and construction of high‐performance OSCs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.