Photothermal Welding Strategy for Mechanical Stability and High Efficiency of ETL‐Free f‐PSCs

Abstract

Flexible perovskite solar cells (f‐PSCs) have drawn widespread interest owing to their distinguished advantages in excellent flexibility and relatively low cost. However, the brittle grain boundaries (GBs) and defects in flexible perovskite film tremendously influence the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and mechanical flexibility of f‐PSCs. Herein, photothermal welding, a novel method, is used to improve the perovskite films quality and the PCE of f‐PSCs with a near‐infrared (NIR) dye (indocyanine green, ICG) and polycaprolactone (PCL) as additives. Due to the strong photothermal effect, ICG molecule not only can significantly enhance NIR light harvesting, but it also can weld GBs upon exposure to an NIR laser, which is conducive to the GBs connections and device flexibility. Meanwhile, the S═O bond of ICG and C═O bond of PCL can simultaneously coordinate with Pb2+ defects in perovskite. Furthermore, they can control crystal growth to form a smooth surface of perovskite film. Consequently, the unencapsulated PSCs based on ICG/PCL displays a high champion PCE of 20.62%, with 88.4% of the original PCE after being placed in dark conditions for 600 h. The f‐PSCs delivers a champion PCE of 19.55% and exhibits excellent mechanical stability, thus providing a meaningful scientific direction to fabricate high‐flexible f‐PSCs.