Herein, we reveal for the first time a comprehensive
mechanism
of poorly investigated electrochemical decomposition of CH3NH3PbI3 using a set of microscopy techniques
(optical, AFM, PL) and ToF-SIMS. We demonstrate that applied electric
bias induces the oxidation of I– to I2, which remains trapped in the film in the form of polyiodides, and
hence, the process can be conceivably reversed by reduction. On the
contrary, reduction of organic methylammonium cation produces volatile
products, which leave the film and thus make the degradation irreversible.
Our results lead to a paradigm change when considering design principles
for improving the stability of complex lead halide materials as those
featuring organic cations rather than halide anions as the most electric
field-sensitive components. Suppressing the electrochemical degradation
of complex lead halides represents a crucial challenge, which should
be addressed in order to bring the operational stability of perovskite
photovoltaics to commercially interesting benchmarks.
We investigated the
impact of a series of hole transport layer
(HTL) materials such as Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene
sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), NiO
x
, poly[bis(4-phenyl)(2,4,6-trimethylphenyl)amine
(PTAA), and polytriarylamine (PTA) on photostability of thin films
and solar cells based on MAPbI3, Cs0.15FA0.85PbI3, Cs0.1MA0.15FA0.75PbI3, Cs0.1MA0.15FA0.75Pb(Br0.15I0.85)3, and
Cs0.15FA0.85Pb(Br0.15I0.85)3 complex lead halides. Mixed halide perovskites showed
reduced photostability in comparison with similar iodide-only compositions.
In particular, we observed light-induced recrystallization of all
perovskite films except MAPbI3 with the strongest effects
revealed for Br-containing systems. Moreover, halide and β FAPbI3 phase segregations were also observed mostly in mixed-halide
systems. Interestingly, coating perovskite films with the PCBM layer
spectacularly suppressed light-induced growth of crystalline domains
as well as segregation of Br-rich and I-rich phases or β FAPbI3. We strongly believe that all three effects are promoted
by the light-induced formation of surface defects, which are healed
by adjacent PCBM coating. While comparing different hole-transport
materials, we found that NiO
x
and PEDOT:PSS
are the least suitable HTLs because of their interfacial (photo)chemical
interactions with perovskite absorbers. On the contrary, polyarylamine-type
HTLs PTA and PTAA form rather stable interfaces, which makes them
the best candidates for durable p–i–n perovskite solar
cells. Indeed, multilayered ITO/PTA(A)/MAPbI3/PCBM stacks
revealed no aging effects within 1000 h of continuous light soaking
and delivered stable and high power conversion efficiencies in solar
cells. The obtained results suggest that using polyarylamine-type
HTLs and simple single-phase perovskite compositions pave a way for
designing stable and efficient perovskite solar cells.
High-temperature crystal structure of the layered cuprates Ln 2 CuO 4 , Ln=Pr, Nd and Sm with tetragonal T'-structure was refined using X-ray powder diffraction data. Substantial anisotropy of the thermal expansion behavior was observed in their crystal structures with thermal expansion coefficients (TEC) along a-and c-axes changing from TEC(a)/TEC(c)≈1.37 (Pr)
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