Electrical and optical degradation study of methylammonium-based perovskite materials under ambient conditions

Abstract

Hybrid perovskites have emerged over the past five years as absorber layers for novel high-efficiency low-cost solar cells which combine the advantages of organic and inorganic semiconductors. One of the main obstacles to their commercialization is their poor stability under light, humidity, oxygen, and high temperatures. In this work, we compare the optical and the electrical light-induced degradation of CH3NH3PbI3 (“MAPI”)-based solar cells using real-time ellipsometry measurements, electrical measurements and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) techniques. We evidence that while the electrical degradation takes place on a short time scale (2–3 days of exposure to ambient light conditions in a nitrogen atmosphere), no optical degradation is observed before 10 days when the dissociation reaction of methylammonium lead iodide starts acting. We find a very good agreement between XRD and ellipsometry measurements; both show the appearance of PbI2 after 1 week of exposure. We also confirm that the main mechanism at play is a light-induced degradation affecting the edges of the stack and the interfaces between the perovskite and the neighbouring layers. Last, a very good match is obtained on the optical constants of MAPI between our ellipsometry measurements and density functional theory calculations we performed, and we confirm the behavior of MAPI as an inorganic semiconductor.