Polymer-Passivated Inorganic Cesium Lead Mixed-Halide Perovskites for Stable and Efficient Solar Cells with High Open-Circuit Voltage over 1.3 V

Cesium-based trihalide perovskites have been demonstrated as promising light absorbers for photovoltaic applications due to their superb composition stability. However, the large energy losses (E-loss) observed in inorganic perovskite solar cells has become a major hindrance impairing the ultimate efficiency. Here, an effective and reproducible method of modifying the interface between a CsPbI2Br absorber and polythiophene hole-acceptor to minimize the E-loss is reported. It is demonstrated that polythiophene, deposited on the top of CsPbI2Br, can significantly reduce electron-hole recombination within the perovskite, which is due to the electronic passivation of surface defect states. In addition, the interfacial properties are improved by a simple annealing process, leading to significantly reduced energy disorder in polythiophene and enhanced hole-injection into the hole-acceptor. Consequently, one of the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.02% from a reverse scan in inorganic mixed-halide perovskite solar cells is obtained. Modifying the perovskite films with annealing polythiophene enables an open-circuit voltage (V-OC) of up to 1.32 V and E-loss of down to 0.5 eV, which both are the optimal values reported among cesium-lead mixed-halide perovskite solar cells to date. This method provides a new route to further improve the efficiency of perovskite solar cells by minimizing the E-loss.