Development of Lead Iodide Perovskite Solar Cells Using Three-Dimensional Titanium Dioxide Nanowire Architectures

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) nanowire (NW) architectures are considered as superior electrode design for photovoltaic devices compared to NWs or nanoparticle systems in terms of improved large surface area and charge transport properties. In this paper, we report development of lead iodide perovskite solar cells based on a novel 3D TiO2 NW architectures. The 3D TiO2 nanostructure was synthesized via surface-reaction-limited pulsed chemical vapor deposition (SPCVD) technique that also implemented the Kirkendall effect for complete ZnO NW template conversion. It was found that the film thickness of 3D TiO2 can significantly influence the photovoltaic performance. Short-circuit current increased with the TiO2 length, while open-circuit voltage and fill factor decreased with the length. The highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.0% was achieved with ∼ 600 nm long 3D TiO2 NW structures. Compared to other 1D nanostructure arrays (TiO2 nanotubes, TiO2-coated ZnO NWs and ZnO NWs), 3D TiO2 NW architecture was able to achieve larger amounts of perovskite loading, enhanced light harvesting efficiency, and increased electron-transport property. Therefore, its PCE is 1.5, 2.3, and 2.8 times higher than those of TiO2 nanotubes, TiO2-coated ZnO NWs, and ZnO NWs, respectively. The unique morphological advantages, together with the largely suppressed hysteresis effect, make 3D hierarchical TiO2 a promising electrode selection in designing high-performance perovskite solar cells.

Mesoporous materials for energy conversion and storage devices

“…For example, Li-doped mesoporous TiO 2 electrodes have demonstrated superior electronic properties by reducing electronic trap states, which enables fast electron transport, thereby improving the PCE from 17% to more than 19% with negligible hysteretic behaviour (that is, lower than 0.3%) 60 . It may also be possible to inhibit the hysteresis by using mesoporous TiO 2 nanowires because of their better charge transport properties compared with mesoporous nanoparticle scaffolds 61 . In addition, hysteresis could be negligible in the inverted planar structure (that is, using p-type and (PEC) for hydrogen production using a mesoporous photoanode and a platinum cathode.…”

Metal Oxides as Efficient Charge Transporters in Perovskite Solar Cells

“…[25] With its large internal surface area, m-TiO 2 is effective at both supporting the perovskite layer and extracting the photocarriers. [102] Leijtens et al reported that the efficiency of PSCs of this type significantly depends on the pore filling of the m-TiO 2 .…”

In-situ fabrication of dual porous titanium dioxide films as anode for carbon cathode based perovskite solar cell

“…Recently, various TiO 2 architectures such as nanorod [31,32], nanowire [33], hyper-branched fiber [34], nanotube [35], and nanosheet [27] have been developed to promote the electron transport rate. However, the low surface area and complicated fabrication procedure are issues to be resolved.…”

“…It is apparent that the thin TiO 2 layer prepared by the SP method is composed of TiO 2 nanoparticles with visible pinholes, whereas a uniform and pinhole-free dense layer with a similar thickness is obtained by the SO method. Interestingly, the SO-TiO 2 compact layer consists of densely-packed up-right TiO 2 nanosheets instead of nanoparticles, which may facilitate the fast electron transport due to the high-speed pathways [31]. The PV performances of the C-PSCs based on different TiO 2 compact layer are shown in Figure 6 and Figure S8, and the data are summarized in Table S3.…”