Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are an innovative technology with great potential to offer cost-effective and high-performance devices for converting light into electricity that can be used for both outdoor and indoor applications. In this study, a novel hole-transporting layer (HTL) was created by mixing copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) molecules into a copper­(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) film and was applied to carbon-based PSCs with cesium/formamidinium (Cs0.17FA0.83Pb­(I0.83Br0.17)3) as a photoabsorber. At the optimum concentration, a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.01% was achieved under AM1.5G test conditions, and 32.1% PCE was acquired under low-light 1000 lux conditions. It was discovered that the mixed CuPc:CuSCN HTL helps reduce trap density and improve the perovskite/HTL interface as well as the HTL/carbon interface. Moreover, the PSCs based on the mixed CuPc:CuSCN HTL provided better stability over 1 year due to the hydrophobicity of CuPc material. In addition, thermal stability was tested at 85 °C and the devices achieved an average efficiency drop of approximately 50% of the initial PCE value after 1000 h. UV light stability was also examined, and the results revealed that the average efficiency drop of 40% of the initial value for 70 min of exposure was observed. The work presented here represents an important step toward the practical implementation of the PSC as it paves the way for the development of cost-effective, stable, yet high-performance PSCs for both outdoor and indoor applications.

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At the laboratory scale, the spin coating technique is commonly used for depositing an electron transporting layer (ETL) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, this technique is unsuitable for scaling up production. To enable large-scale deposition, slot-die coating, — a promising scalable technique and low operational cost processing, — has been proposed for depositing thin and uniform films across large areas. In this work, scalable slot-die coating processes of amorphous zinc tin oxide (ZTO) as ETLs are illustrated for carbon-based methylammonium-free PSCs. The amorphous ZTO was selected because of its excellent optical and electronic properties such as high electrical conductivity, high electron mobility, and high transparency. Slot-die-coated ZTO thin films were prepared from a proprietary homemade slot-die setup on a 3-axis computer numerical control (CNC) platform. Various thicknesses of ZTO thin films were utilized by changing the speed of the slot-die head. The device using slot-die-coated ZTO films with a film thickness of 48[Formula: see text]nm was found to exhibit the best device maximum power conversion efficiency of 9.92%, which is comparable to that of the device using spin-coated ZTO film. This work demonstrates the potential of the slot-die coating technique to replace the conventional spin-coating method in the fabrication of high efficiency and scalable PSCs.