Flash Infrared Annealing for Antisolvent-Free Highly Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

Organic-inorganic perovskites have demonstrated an impressive potential for the design of the next generation of solar cells. Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are currently considered for scaling up and commercialization. Many of the lab-scale preparation methods are however difficult to scale up or are environmentally unfriendly. The highest efficient PSCs are currently prepared using the antisolvent method, which utilizes a significant amount of an organic solvent to induce perovskite crystallization in a thin film. An antisolvent-free method is developed in this work using flash infrared annealing (FIRA) to prepare methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI(3)) PSCs with a record stabilized power conversion efficiency of 18.3%. With an irradiation time of fewer than 2 s, FIRA enables the coating of glass and plastic substrates with pinhole-free perovskite films that exhibit micrometer-size crystalline domains. This work discusses the FIRA-induced crystallization mechanism and unveils the main parameters controlling the film morphology. The replacement of the antisolvent method and the larger crystalline domains resulting from flash annealing make FIRA a highly promising method for the scale-up of PSC manufacture.