Recent advances in plasmonic metal and rare-earth-element upconversion nanoparticle doped perovskite solar cells

Organic-inorganic lead halide based perovskite solar cells are considered as one of the most promising third generation photovoltaic technologies, since within a few years of focused research efforts, they have already presented certified efficiencies surpassing 22%. The high performance, together with the low fabrication cost, makes this technology competitive with state-of-the-art thin film photovoltaics (CdTe and CIGS). However perovskite solar cells present some striking disadvantages hindering their commercialization, including a lower performance compared to commercially available silicon based photovoltaics (26.6%), a low stability tolerance under high levels of moisture and temperature, lead B-cation toxicity and the hysteresis effect which ruins both the performance and long term stability of the devices. Recently, a promising approach to tackle the aforementioned disadvantages was the introduction of plasmonic metal and rare-earth-element upconversion nanoparticles in the building blocks of the devices. In this paper, we review the theoretical and experimental results of the literature regarding the introduction of different constitution, size, shape and coating plasmonic metal and rare-earth-element upconversion nanoparticles into the building blocks of both planar and mesoscopic perovskite solar cells. We analyze their effect on the device performance, stability, hysteresis effect and how they can be very beneficial for making these solar cells environmentally friendly and compatible with tandem applications. In addition, we discuss the critical challenges and the prospects of this newly developed field and propose some prospects for future research directions.