Cu-doped nickel oxide interface layer with nanoscale thickness for efficient and highly stable printable carbon-based perovskite solar cell

Abstract

The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of hole conductor free carbon-based perovskite solar cells (PSCs) is restricted by the poor charge extraction and recombination losses at the carbon-perovskite interface. For the first time we successfully demonstrated incorporation of thin layer of copper doped nickel oxide (Cu:NiOx) nanoparticles in carbon-based PSCs, which helps in improving the performance of these solar devices. Cu:NiOx nanoparticles have been synthesized by a facile chemical method, and processed into a paste for screen printing. Extensive X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) analysis elucidates the co-ordination of Cu in a NiOx matrix and indicates the presence of around 5.4% Cu in the sample. We fabricated a monolithic perovskite module on a 100 cm2 glass substrate (active area of 70 cm2) with a thin Cu:NiOx layer (80 nm), where the champion device shows an appreciated power conversion efficiency of 12.1% under an AM 1.5G illumination. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported efficiency for such a large area perovskite solar device. I-V scans show that the introduction of Cu:NiOx mesoporous scaffold increases the photocurrent, and yields fill factor (FF) values exceeding 57% due to the better interface and increased hole extraction efficiency. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) results reinforce the above results by showing the reduction in recombination resistance (Rrec) of the PSCs that incorporates Cu:NiOx interlayer. The perovskite solar modules with a Cu:NiOx layer are stable for more than 4500 h in an ambient environment (25 °C and 65% RH), with PCE degradation of less than 5% of the initial value.