(3-Aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane Surface Passivation Improves Perovskite Solar Cell Performance by Reducing Surface Recombination Velocity

We demonstrate reduced surface recombination velocity (SRV) and enhanced power-conversion efficiency (PCE) in mixed-cation mixed-halide perovskite solar cells by using (3-aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane (APTMS) as a surface passivator. We show the APTMS serves to passivate defects at the perovskite surface, while also decoupling the perovskite from detrimental interactions at the C-60 interface. We measure a SRV of similar to 125 +/- 14 cm/s, and a concomitant increase of similar to 100 meV in quasi-Fermi level splitting in passivated devices compared to the controls. We use time-resolved photoluminescence and excitation-correlation photoluminescence spectroscopy to show that APTMS passivation effectively suppresses nonradiative recombination. We show that APTMS improves both the fill factor and open-circuit voltage (V-OC), increasing VOC from 1.03 V for control devices to 1.09 V for APTMS-passivated devices, and leads to a PCE increase from 15.90% to 18.03%. We attribute the enhanced performance to reduced defect density resulting in suppressed nonradiative recombination and lower SRV at the perovskite/transport layer interface.

Automated summary

We demonstrate that using APTMS as a surface passivator can reduce surface recombination velocity and enhance power conversion efficiency in mixed-cation mixed-halide perovskite solar cells. The study shows that APTMS can passivate defects at the perovskite surface and decouple the perovskite from detrimental interactions at the C-60 interface. The use of APTMS effectively suppresses nonradiative recombination and improves both the fill factor and open-circuit voltage, resulting in increased power-conversion efficiency.