Potential replacement to lead: Alkali metal potassium and transition metal zinc in organo-metal halide perovskite materials

Abstract

Following the plenty of research work on solving the issue of the popular and promising perovskite solar cells, this article is focused on methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) and the alternative element which can perform as efficiently as lead does. Here, not only the different concentrations of the substitute element are investigated, but also higher stable perovskite is introduced as well. Several characterization techniques are used to assure the validity of the results. The large alkali metal potassium (K) and the transition metal zinc (Zn) are studied side by side. The results are interesting when the 5% concentration of the KI alloyed MAPbI3 shows considerable transport properties like 54 nm diffusion length, 245 × 10−9 Sm−1 photoconductivity, and significant majority and minority carrier mobility–lifetime product as compared to MAPbI3 but it becomes more interesting when after 60 days the 5% concentration of the aged ZnCl2 alloyed MAPbI3 turns into a leading element of this research by showing high stability among of all. The morphology investigations show both perovskite materials achieve large islands which are desired morphology in perovskite materials as well.