Non-precious transition metals as counter electrode of perovskite solar cells

Usually, perovskite solar cells employ gold or silver as counter electrode materials. The use of the precious metals is a serious obstacle to the practical application of perovskite solar cells. In this work, low-cost nonprecious transition metals are investigated to replace gold or silver as counter electrode materials in perovskite solar cells. Under optimized conditions, perovskite solar cells with Cu, Ni, W, and Mo films, prepared by magnetron sputtering deposition, present satisfactory performance with the power conversion efficiency of 13.04, 12.18, 12.38, and 11.38%, respectively, as compared with that (15.97%) of the perovskite solar cell with Ag counter electrode. Even though a slightly loss in efficiency, these non-precious transition metals are the promising candidates to the counter electrode of perovskite solar cells on the aspect of the practicality and cost performance ratio.