Stability and efficiency issues, solutions and advancements in perovskite solar cells: A review

The modern era of cutting-edge technology needs alternative renewable energy resources due to limited stocks and pollution concerns dealing with the conventional resources. Solar photovoltaics (PV) has been recognized as one of the potential alternatives with environmental and cost-effective aspects. The conventional Silicon solar cells have been champion at both the laboratory and industrial scales and dominated the PV market owing to inexpensive generation of electricity, but its cost is relatively higher vis-`a-vis to the second and third generation solar cell technologies. Over the years, the perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have grabbed incredible attention and attained excellent PV performance owing to their competitive power conversion efficiency (PCE) which hiked from 3.1 % to 25.7 % and could be a reasonable cost-effective alternative to Si-based technology too. Despite of the plagued performance and desirable properties of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), still these cells have stability issues and the maximum lifetime that a PSC attained is 1 year while the champion Silicon solar cells have a lifetime of up to 25 years. Therefore, to address the stability and efficiency issues, the present review deals with an evolution to the device architecture, electron transport, hole transport and perovskite absorber layers to the PSCs in terms of PCE and stability. Also, the chemical nature, properties, stability issues along with the commercialization grade and future insights to the PSCs have been portrayed.

Automated summary

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown great potential as an alternative renewable energy resource with competitive power conversion efficiency. However, PSCs still face stability issues and have a shorter lifetime compared to traditional silicon solar cells. This review focuses on the evolution of PSCs in terms of device architecture, electron transport, hole transport, and perovskite absorber layers to improve their PCE and stability. It also discusses the chemical nature, properties, commercialization status, and future outlook of PSCs.