Spray-Deposited, Virus-Templated SnO2 Mesoporous Electron Transport Layer for High-Efficiency, Sequential-Deposited Perovskite Solar Cells

In recent years, researchers have developed spray deposition technology to fabricate tin oxide electron transport layer (ETL) with the aim of manufacturing high-efficiency, large-area perovskite solar cell (PSC). However, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of PSC based on sprayed SnO2 ETL remains inferior to that of the spin-coated SnO2 ETL. Herein, the combined use of spray deposition and genetically engineered M13 bacteriophages for the deposition of M13-SnO2 biohybrid ETL over large-area (62.5 cm(2)) substrates is demonstrated. The spray-deposited M13-SnO2 ETLs exhibit mesoporous morphologies with >85% transmittance in UV-vis region. Through the use of M13-SnO2 ETL, the sequential-deposited PSCs achieve a maximum PCE of approximate to 22.1%. The improved performance of the PSC is attributable to the mesoporous morphology of M13-SnO2 ETL that facilitates the growth of larger perovskite grains. The PSCs based on M13-SnO2 ETLs also display highly consistent photovoltaic performance which manifests the excellent scalability of the spraying process. Furthermore, M13-SnO2-based PSCs exhibit higher ambient stability compared to the SnO2-based PSCs, showing that the use of M13 bacteriophage is incredibly beneficial to both the efficiency and stability of PSCs.

Automated summary

In recent years, researchers have used spray deposition technology to fabricate tin oxide electron transport layer (ETL) for perovskite solar cells (PSC). However, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of spray-deposited SnO2 ETL is lower than that of spin-coated SnO2 ETL. This study demonstrates the combined use of spray deposition and genetically engineered M13 bacteriophages to deposit M13-SnO2 biohybrid ETL over large-area substrates, resulting in improved PCE of approximately 22.1% and enhanced stability of the PSCs.