Variation of Interfacial Interactions in PC61BM-like Electron-Transporting Compounds for Perovskite Solar Cells

The synthesis, characterization, and incorporation of phenyl-C-61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM)-like derivatives as electron transporting materials (ETMs) in inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are reported. These compounds have the same structure except for the ester substituent, which was varied from methyl to phenyl to thienyl and to pyridyl. The three latter derivatives performed better than PC61BM in PSCs, mainly attributed to the specific interactions of the fullerenes with the perovskite layer, as evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (SS- and TRPL) measurements. The experimental results were fully supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which showed that the strongest interactions were exhibited by the compound possessing the pyridyl substituent.