TiO2/SnO2 Bilayer Electron Transport Layer for High Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells

The electron transport layer (ETL) has been extensively investigated as one of the important components to construct high-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Among them, inorganic semiconducting metal oxides such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), and tin oxide (SnO2) present great advantages in both fabrication and efficiency. However, the surface defects and uniformity are still concerns for high performance devices. Here, we demonstrated a bilayer ETL architecture PSC in which the ETL is composed of a chemical-bath-deposition-based TiO2 thin layer and a spin-coating-based SnO2 thin layer. Such a bilayer-structure ETL can not only produce a larger grain size of PSCs, but also provide a higher current density and a reduced hysteresis. Compared to the mono-ETL PCSs with a low efficiency of 16.16%, the bilayer ETL device features a higher efficiency of 17.64%, accomplished with an open-circuit voltage of 1.041 V, short-circuit current density of 22.58 mA/cm(2), and a filling factor of 75.0%, respectively. These results highlight the unique potential of TiO2/SnO2 combined bilayer ETL architecture, paving a new way to fabricate high-performance and low-hysteresis PSCs.

Automated summary

We demonstrated a bilayer electron transport layer (ETL) architecture for high-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs), with a chemical-bath-deposition-based titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin layer and a spin-coating-based tin oxide (SnO2) thin layer. The bilayer ETL not only produces larger grain size of PSCs, but also provides higher current density and reduced hysteresis. Compared to mono-ETL PCSs with an efficiency of 16.16%, the bilayer ETL device features a higher efficiency of 17.64%.