Tailoring the orientation of perovskite crystals via adding two-dimensional polymorphs for perovskite solar cells

Organic-inorganic perovskite materials are attracting increasing attention for their use in high-performance solar cells due to their outstanding properties, such as long diffusion lengths, low recombination rate, and tunable bandgap. Finding an effective method of defect passivation is thought to be a promising route for improvements toward narrowing the distribution of the power conversion efficiency (PCE) values, given by the spread in the PCE over different devices fabricated under identical conditions, for easier commercialization. In this work, we add 2-(4-fluoroph-enyl)ethyl ammonium iodide (p-f-PEAI) into the bulk of a mixed cation lead halide perovskite (CH3NH3PbBr3)(0.15)(HC(NH2)(2)PbI3)(0.85)thin film. We investigate the influence of different p-f-PEAI concentrations on the optical properties, morphology, crystal orientation, charge carrier dynamics, and device performance. We observe that introducing the proper amount of p-f-PEAI changes the preferential orientation of the perovskite crystals, promotes the strength of the crystal textures, and suppresses non-radiative charge recombination. Thus, we obtain a narrower distribution of the PCE of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) without sacrificing the PCE values reached. This is an important step toward better reproducibility to realize the commercialization of PSCs.