Perovskite Solar Cells: Progress and Advancements

Abstract

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have emerged as a new class of optoelectronic semiconductors that revolutionized the photovoltaic research in the recent years. The perovskite solar cells present numerous advantages include unique electronic structure, bandgap tunability, superior charge transport properties, facile processing, and low cost. Perovskite solar cells have demonstrated unprecedented progress in efficiency and its architecture evolved over the period of the last 5-6 years, achieving a high power conversion efficiency of about 22% in 2016, serving as a promising candidate with the potential to replace the existing commercial PV technologies. This review discusses the progress of perovskite solar cells focusing on aspects such as superior electronic properties and unique features of halide perovskite materials compared to that of conventional light absorbing semiconductors. The review also presents a brief overview of device architectures, fabrication methods, and interface engineering of perovskite solar cells. The last part of the review elaborates on the major challenges such as hysteresis and stability issues in perovskite solar cells that serve as a bottleneck for successful commercialization of this promising PV technology.

Optical properties of zinc titanate perovskite prepared by reactive RF sputtering

“…Oxide mineral CaTiO 3 was discovered in 1839 in the Ural Mountains and named for Russian mineralogist L. A. Perovski. Synthetic perovskites such as KNbO 3 , KBNNO, and organic-inorganic CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 have become famous recently as prospective materials for solar cells with remarkable efficiency progress from the pioneer efficiency of 2 % in 2009 to the efficiency jump of 22.1 % in March 2016 [2,3].…”

“…Perovskites are materials of special stoichiometry ABX 3 with X being anions, typically oxygen or halogens, B usually transition metals elements, eg Ti cations, and A great metal cations, usually alkaline earth or rare earth elements, eg Ca, Zn [1,2]. Oxide mineral CaTiO 3 was discovered in 1839 in the Ural Mountains and named for Russian mineralogist L. A. Perovski.…”

Progress and Prospect on Stability of Perovskite Photovoltaics

“…[57] Mesostructural architecture was used to obtain first high-performance devices by depositing the mixture on mesoporous n-type TiO2 or insulating Al2O3 scaffold substrates and the scaffolds were on top of a thin n-type compact TiO2 layer [37].However, spin-coating the mixture directly onto the compact n-type contact, as in planar hetero-junction architectures, initially resulted in a dewetting effect, [53] leading to poor surface coverage [52]. This in turn resulted in poor device performance as a result of high series resistance paths and low light absorption in the solar cell.…”

“…fabricating perovskite solar cells [57] A thin film of metal halide precursor (e.g., PbI2) is first deposited and then the film coated substrate is dipped into the second precursor solution. Using two -step sequential method controls the morphology of the two precursors [56].…”

Research Update: Bismuth-based perovskite-inspired photovoltaic materials

“…By comparison, in heterojunction devices, drift occurs in the depletion region and diffusion in the quasi-neutral region. 87 The highest reported device efficiencies of a selection of bismuth-based photovoltaics and their device structures are given in Table I. Some of the reviews detailing device optimization efforts are given in Refs.…”