Recent Advancements on Slot-Die Coating of Perovskite Solar Cells: The Lab-to-Fab Optimisation Process

Abstract

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are the most rapidly advancing photovoltaic technology in terms of power conversion efficiency. An efficiency of 26.1% was achieved in a decade, which is on par with the efficiency of very mature silicon panels. However, PSC commercialisation is partly hindered by the difficulty of scaling these devices without efficiency loss, mostly due to the increasing sheet resistance of the transparent conductive layer substrates and the nonuniformity of the layers when deposited across large areas. Therefore, it is crucial for the commercialisation of PSCs to implement easily scalable deposition processes with low material waste and compatibility with roll-to-roll (R2R) processes to reduce manufacturing costs. Slot-die coating can meet all these requirements, allowing for great uniformity over large areas. The most recent developments in PSC upscaling using slot-die coating as the main deposition process, along with its extension to the R2R process, are reviewed, including a thorough discussion of the slot-die coating process and the theory behind its operating limits. In fact, R2R coating is a very promising strategy for PSC industrialisation, since all processing steps use low-cost materials and scalable processes at temperatures lower than 120 °C, allowing the cost-effective and high-throughput production of PSC devices.