Copper doped lanthanum hydroxide nanorods as a low temperature processable hole transport material for perovskite solar cells

Abstract

For efficient perovskite solar cells (PSCs), hole transport layers (HTLs) are necessary components that can suppress recombination by collecting holes and blocking electrons. Inorganic hole transport materials (HTMs) are attractive because of their ease of preparation, low production cost and high stability. Although metal oxides and halides have been developed as the HTMs, metal hydroxides have not yet been reported as the HTMs of PSCs. In this work, copper doped lanthanum hydroxide (LaxCuy(OH)3) nanorods were firstly synthesized by the hydrothermal method as a new kind of HTM for PSCs. Although the valence band edge of La(OH)3 is slightly mismatch with that of perovskite layers, Cu2+ dopants improve the energy level alignment at HTL/perovskite interfaces. As an acceptor dopant for La(OH)3, Cu2+ ions also increase the hole transport ability of LaxCuy(OH)3 HTLs. Additionally, LaxCuy(OH)3 HTLs tend to encourage the crystallization of perovskite layers. As a consequence, Cu2+ dopants lead to an increase of PCE from 11.3 % to 20.4 % for LaxCuy(OH)3 based PSCs. This promotion can be related to the reduced recombination process and the elevated charge extraction process. This work firstly applied metal hydroxide as the HTMs of PSCs, and demonstrates the regulation of these HTMs by the doping method.