Customizing Co-Evaporated Perovskites: from Small Areas Solar Cells to Mini-module

Dr. Paola Delli Veneri offers a brief introduction to the VIPERLAB project and today's talk and speaker

Metal-halide perovskites made a breakthrough in photovoltaic and light-emitting technologies in the last ten years. MHPs are one of the most promising low-cost materials, due to their excellent optoelectronic properties and fabrication versatility. Since the advent of the first perovskite solar cells (PSCs) in 2009, their power conversion efficiency (PCE) has now reached 25.6% [1], for active areas smaller than 1 cm² and their operational stability is constantly improving [2-4]. The interest in transferring the existing technology into large-area perovskite modules using industrial compatible techniques is exploding.

In this talk, I will show why thermal evaporation is a promising perovskite fabrication technique to bring this technology closer to reliable and extended production, by relying on excellent size scalability, promising stability, fine composition control, and surface adaptability  [5]. The co-evaporated perovskite thin ?lms are uniform over large areas with low surface roughness and a long carrier lifetime. I will present our highly ef?cient, large area, PSCs where the MAPbI₃ perovskite is deposited by thermal co-evaporation. Developing optimation strategies customized for n.i.p [6, 7] and p.i.n [8] architectures the PSCs achieved PCEs above 20% in both configurations. Moreover, the co-evaporated MAPbI₃ is formed intrinsically strain-free and the PSCs showed remarkable structural robustness and impressive thermal maintaining over ≈80% of their initial PCE after 3600 under continuous thermal aging at 85 °C without encapsulation [9].

Extrapolating the optimization strategies over large areas, the co-evaporated mini-modules achieved record PCEs up to 18.7% for active areas larger than 10 cm² [5] [10]. Moreover, looking toward building-integrated photovoltaics we have also developed colored semi-transparent PSCs and mini-modules with a wide range of colors.

I will further discuss how these results represent a significant step toward the commercialization of the perovskite technology

References

1. NREL. Best Research-Cell Efficiency Chart; U.S. Department of Energy; https://www.nrel.gov/pv/cell-efficiency.htm.
2. S. Yang, S. Chen, E. Mosconi, Y. Fang, X. Xiao, C. Wang, Y. Zhou, Z. Yu, J. Zhao, Y. Gao, Science 2019, 365, 473.
3. Y. Wang, T. Wu, J. Barbaud, W. Kong, D. Cui, H. Chen, X. Yang, L. Han, Science 2019 365, 687.
4. MV Khenkin, EA Katz, et al., M Lira-Cantu, Nature Energy 5, 35-49
5. H.A. Dewi, L. Jia, E. Erdenebileg, H. Wang, Mi. De Bastiani, S.De Wolf, N Mathews, S Mhaisalkar, A Bruno, Efficient bandgap widening of co-evaporated MAPbI3 perovskite, Sust. Energy & Fuels. 2022, 6, 2428-2438
6. J. Li, H. Wang, X. Y. Chin, H. A. Dewi, K. Vergeer, T. W. Goh, J. W. M. Lim, J. H. Lew, K. P. Loh, C. Soci, T. C. Sum, H. J. Bolink, N. Mathews, S. Mhaisalkar, A. Bruno, Joule 2020, 4, 1035
7. J Li, HA Dewi, W Hao, N Mathews, S Mhaisalkar, A Bruno, Coatings, 2020 10(12), 1163
8. J Li, HA Dewi, W Hao, J Zhao, N Tiwari, N Yantara, T Malinauskas, V Getautis, T J. Savenije, N Mathews, S. Mhaisalkar, A Bruno, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2021.
9. HA Dewi, L Li, W Hao, N Mathews, S Mhaisalkar, A Bruno, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2021 2100557,
10. L Li, HA Dewi, W Hao, L Jia Haur, N Mathews, S Mhaisalkar, A Bruno, Solar RRL, 2020, 4, 2000473