Unified Crystal Phase Control with MACl for Inducing Single-Crystal-Like Perovskite Thin Films in High-Pressure Fusion Toward High Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cell Modules.

Perovskite solar cells, recognized for their high photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE), cost-effectiveness, and simple fabrication, face challenges in PCE improvement due to structural defects in polycrystalline films. This study introduces a novel fabrication method for perovskite films using methylammonium chloride (MACl) to align grain orientation uniformly, followed by a high-pressure process to merge these grains into a texture resembling single-crystal perovskite. Employing advanced visual fluorescence microscopy, charge dynamics in these films are analyzed, uncovering the significant impact of grain boundaries on photo-generated charge transport within perovskite crystals. A key discovery is that optimal charge transport efficiency and speed occur in grain centers when the grain size exceeds 10 µm, challenging the traditional view that efficiency peaks when grain size surpasses film thickness to form a monolayer. Additionally, the presence of large-sized grains enhances ion activation energy, reducing ion migration under light and improving resistance to photo-induced degradation. In application, a perovskite solar cell module with large grains achieve a PCE of 22.45%, maintaining performance with no significant degradation under continuous white LED light at 100 mA cm-2 for over 1000 h. This study offers a new approach to perovskite film fabrication and insights into optimizing perovskite solar cell modules.

SnSe2 Quantum Dots and Chlorhexidine Acetate Suppress Synergistically Non-radiative Recombination Loss for High Efficiency and Stability Perovskite Solar Cells.

Non-radiative recombination losses limit the property of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, a synergistic strategy of SnSe2QDs doping into SnO2 and chlorhexidine acetate (CA) coating on the surface of perovskite is proposed. The introduction of 2D SnSe2QDs reduces the oxygen vacancy defects and increases the carrier mobility of SnO2. The optimized SnO2 as a buried interface obviously improves the crystallization quality of perovskite. The CA containing abundant active sites of ─NH2/─NH─, ─C═N, CO, ─Cl groups passivate the defects on the surface and grain boundary of perovskite. The alkyl chain of CA also improves the hydrophobicity of perovskite. Moreover, the synergism of SnSe2QDs and CA releases the residual stress and regulates the energy level arrangement at the top and bottom interface of perovskite. Benefiting from these advantages, the bulk and interface non-radiative recombination loss is greatly suppressed and thereby increases the carrier transport and extraction in devices. As a result, the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 23.41% for rigid PSCs and the best PCE of 21.84% for flexible PSCs are reached. The rigid PSC maintains 89% of initial efficiency after storing nitrogen for 3100 h. The flexible PSCs retain 87% of the initial PCE after 5000 bending cycles at a bending radius of 5 mm.

Buried Interface Optimization for Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells with High Efficiency and Mechanical Stability.

The power conversion efficiency (PCE) and stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are significantly reduced by defect-induced charge non-radiative recombination. Also, unexpected residual strain in perovskite films leads to an unfavorable impact on the stability and efficiency of PSCs, notably flexible PSCs (f-PSCs). Considering these problems, a thorough and effective strategy is proposed by incorporating phytic acid (PA) into SnO2 as an electron transport layer (ETL). With the addition of PA, the Sn inherent dangling bonds are passivated effectively and thus enhance the conductivity and electron mobility of SnO2 ETL. Meanwhile, the crystallization quality of perovskite is increased largely. Therefore, the interface/bulk defects are reduced. Besides, the residual strain of perovskite film is significantly reduced and the energy level alignment at the SnO2 /perovskite interface becomes more matched. As a result, the champion f-PSC obtains a PCE of 21.08% and rigid PSC obtains a PCE of 21.82%, obviously surpassing the PCE of 18.82% and 19.66% of the corresponding control devices. Notably, the optimized f-PSCs exhibit outstanding mechanical durability, after 5000 cycles of bending with a 5 mm bending radius, the SnO2 -PA-based device preserves 80% of the initial PCE, while the SnO2 -based device only remains 49% of the initial value.

Recent advances in encapsulation of highly stable perovskite nanocrystals and their potential applications in optoelectronic devices.

Due to their tunable wavelength, high color purity, bright emission and low-cost fabrication process, perovskite nanocrystals (PeNCs) have attracted broad interest and exhibited great prospects in application areas such as solar cells, light-emitting diodes, photodetectors, and lasers. Although the fabrication of PeNCs and related optoelectronic devices has witnessed rapid development over the past several years, the poor stability of PeNCs in an external environment still remains a major drawback which severely limits the further improvement and commercialization of PeNC-based devices. Therefore, various techniques and strategies have been developed to enhance the stability of PeNCs. Among them, the encapsulation strategy has been demonstrated to be an effective way to improve the stability of PeNCs. In this review, the origin of the instability of PeNCs is first analyzed to identify the importance of encapsulation, followed by a summary and discussions on recent advances in the encapsulation of PeNCs. The potential applications of encapsulated PeNCs in various optoelectronic devices are also presented to manifest the necessity of encapsulation. Finally, the further development and outlook on encapsulation of PeNCs are analyzed in order to suggest future improvements and commercialization of PeNCs and related optoelectronic devices.

Twisted graphene stabilized by organic linkers pillaring.

Twisted graphene, including magic angle graphene, has attracted extensive attentions for its novel properties recently. However, twisted graphene is intrinsically unstable and this will obstruct their application in practice, especially for twisted nano graphene. The twist angles between adjacent layers will change spontaneously. This relaxation process will be accelerated under heat and strain. To solve this problem, we propose a strategy of pillaring twisted graphene by organic linkers in theory. The necessity and feasibility of this strategy is proved by numerical calculation.

Improving the performance of inorganic perovskite solar cells via the perovskite quantum dot dynamically mediated film growth method.

Perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) are promising interface modification materials for perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, due to the limitation of the preparation method, it is hard to use PQDs as substrates for the growth of perovskite films by the common solution process. In this work, by introducing the rare earth element Ce into PQDs with the vacuum freezing and drying technology, we have successfully improved the solvent stability of PQDs. Moreover, we propose a technology, PQD dynamically mediated growth of perovskite film (PDMG), to prepare high-quality perovskite films, which can avoid the formation of PQD charge-blocking layers. Thanks to the improvement of perovskite crystallinity and the charge transport ability, the PCE is improved from 10.44% to 12.14% for CsPbI2Br PSCs and from 14.43% to 16.38% for CsPbI3 PSCs. Our work opens an avenue for using PQDs as substrates in the fabrication of highly efficient PSCs.

Withdrawn: CircTDRD3 aggravates H/R-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis via targeting miR-4295/TP63 axis.

The above article, published online on 5 December 2022, on Wiley Online Library (https://doi.org/10.1002/jbt.23003), has been withdrawn by agreement between the journal Editor in Chief, Hari Bhat, and Wiley Periodicals, LLC. The withdrawal has been agreed due to a technical error at the publisher that caused the article to be mistakenly published online although publication had been canceled because the authors did not approve their proof.

Application of quantum dots in perovskite solar cells.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are important candidates for next-generation thin-film photovoltaic technology due to their superior performance in energy harvesting. At present, their photoelectric conversion efficiencies (PCEs) are comparable to those of silicon-based solar cells. PSCs usually have a multi-layer structure. Therefore, they face the problem that the energy levels between adjacent layers often mismatch each other. Meanwhile, large numbers of defects are often introduced due to the solution preparation procedures. Furthermore, the perovskite is prone to degradation under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. These problems could degrade the efficiency and stability of PSCs. In order to solve these problems, quantum dots (QDs), a kind of low-dimensional semiconductor material, have been recently introduced into PSCs as charge transport materials, interfacial modification materials, dopants and luminescent down-shifting materials. By these strategies, the energy alignment and interfacial conditions are improved, the defects are efficiently passivated, and the instability of perovskite under UV irradiation is suppressed. So the device efficiency and stability are both improved. In this paper, we overview the recent progress of QDs' utilizations in PSCs.

Why ultrafast charge separation occurs in bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells: a multichain tight binding model study.

Bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells (OSCs) exhibit ultrafast charge separation (UCS) which enables lower geminate charge recombination and high internal quantum efficiency. Unravelling why UCS occurs in BHJ-OSCs is important for the exploration of devices in future, however it is still far from clear. In this work, we build a multichain tight-binding model to study the conditions for realizing UCS. We propose that two conditions are important: (i) the BHJ-OSC has a morphology with donor and acceptor molecules being individually aggregated; (ii) the ratio of the donor/acceptor interfacial coupling to the internal donor/donor and acceptor/acceptor coupling should be smaller than a threshold. In addition, we suggest that increasing the donor/acceptor energetic offset will boost the UCS efficiency. As a fundamental theoretical analysis on the underlying mechanism of UCS, our work provides design rules for optimizing high-performance BHJ OSCs.

Interface modification of an electron transport layer using europium acetate for enhancing the performance of P3HT-based inorganic perovskite solar cells.

In recent years, although the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of thermally stable all-inorganic CsPbI3 perovskite solar cells (PSCs) had shown a great progress, the most reported CsPbI3 PSCs suffered from the large open-circuit voltage (Voc) loss, which is related to severe nonradiative recombination and a mismatch in energy level at the transport layer/perovskite interface. In this work, europium acetate (EuAc3) as a multifunction interface material is chosen to modify the TiO2/perovskite interface, the crystal quality of CsPbI3 perovskite films is improved, and both bulk and interfacial defects are reduced effectively. Meanwhile, the energy levels arrangement between TiO2 and CsPbI3 perovskites is also optimized, corresponding the raised built-in electric field afford a strength force to accelerate the transport and extraction of charge carriers from CsPbI3 perovskites to TiO2. As a result, the performance of CsPbI3 PSCs is largely enhanced with the PCE of 16.76%. When an Ag electrode was replaced by Au, the PCE further improves to 17.92%, which is the highest for CsPbI3 PSCs with P3HT as the HTL ever reported. Besides, the CsPbI3 PSC with the EuAc3 modification layer maintains 84% of the initial PCE under continuous UV irradiation for 250 h in a nitrogen filled glovebox, being obviously higher than the control devices with only 40% of the initial PCE after UV irradiation for 100 h in the same environment.

High performance flexible organic photomultiplication photodetector based on an ultra-thin silver film transparent electrode.

Flexible and lightweight photomultiplication-type organic photodetectors (PM-OPDs) have attracted wide attention for their broad application prospects, especially in the field of wearable electronic products. However, the commonly used indium tin oxide (ITO) conductive anode is not conducive to realize high-performance flexible PM-OPDs due to its rigidity and fragility. Here, on the flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, we successfully fabricate highly sensitive poly 3-hexylthiophene:phenyl-C70-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PC70BM, 100:1) based PM-OPDs using ultra-thin silver films as transparent anodes. Specifically, a 1 nm thick MoO3 layer is utilized as the wetting layer for facilitating the silver film percolation, and a 2 nm thick MoO3 layer, as the hole transport layer, is coated on top of the ultra-thin silver film before coating the P3HT:PC70BM film. The as-prepared flexible PM-OPDs based on the ultra-thin silver film exhibit the optimal external quantum efficiency (EQE) and responsivity (R) of 1.3 × 105% and 388.4 A W-1, respectively, under -15 V bias, which are 1.98 times and 2.15 times greater than those of the ITO anode based device. More importantly, the device has good flexibility with the EQE maintaining 70.6% of its initial value after bending 10 times, and 51.4% of its initial value after bending 1000 times. This work paves the way for developing flexible PM-OPDs as well as other flexible optoelectronic devices.

Broadband and wide-angle light absorption of organic solar cells based on multiple-depths metal grating.

A silver grating containing three grooves with different depths in one period was proposed as the back electrode for improving light absorption in organic solar cells. We found that the broadband absorption enhancement of the active layer covering the visible and near-infrared bands can be obtained due to the excitation of surface plasmon resonance and the multiple resonances of cavity mode. The integrated absorption efficiency of the proposed structure under TM polarization between 350 nm to 900 nm is 57.4%, with consideration of the weight of AM 1.5G solar spectrum, and is increased by 13.4% with respect to the equivalent planar device. Besides, the wide-angle absorption in proposed structure can be observed in the range from 0 to 50 degrees. These findings are of great importance for rationally designing composite nanostructures of metal gratings-based absorbers for sensing and photon-detecting applications.

Interfacial Passivation of the p-Doped Hole-Transporting Layer Using General Insulating Polymers for High-Performance Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells.

Organic-inorganic lead halide perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), as a competing technology with traditional inorganic solar cells, have now realized a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 22.1%. In PVSCs, interfacial carrier recombination is one of the dominant energy-loss mechanisms, which also results in the simultaneous loss of potential efficiency. In this work, for planar inverted PVSCs, the carrier recombination is dominated by the dopant concentration in the p-doped hole transport layers (HTLs), since the F4-TCNQ dopant induces more charge traps and electronic transmission channels, thus leading to a decrease in open-circuit voltages (VOC ). This issue is efficiently overcome by inserting a thin insulating polymer layer (poly(methyl methacrylate) or polystyrene) as a passivation layer with an appropriate thickness, which allows for increases in the VOC without significantly sacrificing the fill factor. It is believed that the passivation layer attributes to the passivation of interfacial recombination and the suppression of current leakage at the perovskite/HTL interface. By manipulating this interfacial passivation technique, a high PCE of 20.3% is achieved without hysteresis. Consequently, this versatile interfacial passivation methodology is highly useful for further improving the performance of planar inverted PVSCs.

Tunable dual-channel filter based on the photonic crystal with air defects.

We propose a tuning filter containing two channels by inserting a defect layer (Air/Si/Air/Si/Air) into a one-dimensional photonic crystal of Si/SiO2, which is on the symmetry of the defect. Two transmission peaks (1528.98 and 1564.74 nm) appear in the optical communication S-band and C-band, and the transmittance of these two channels is up to 100%. In addition, this design realizes multi-channel filtering to process large dynamic range or multiple independent signals in the near-infrared band by changing the structure. The tuning range will be enlarged, and the channels can be moved in this range through the easy control of air thickness and incident angle.

Effective medium analysis of absorption enhancement in short-pitch metal grating incorporated organic solar cells.

The effective medium theory is applied to analyze the absorption enhancement in organic solar cells with a short-pitch metal grating. A 37% improvement in the absorption of the active layer is achieved with respect to that of a planar control cell. It is inspired that the propagating surface plasmon modes are excited at the interface between the effective medium layer and the flat metal plate, resulting in a reduction of light reflection. In real structure, the electric field redistributes with its intensity in the region with active materials infiltrated in the grooves increases significantly, exhibiting like hot spots to assist in achieving broadband absorption enhancement. Moreover, the localized surface plasmon resonances excited at the top of the metal ridges also contribute to the absorption enhancement in the cells.

Enhanced perovskite morphology and crystallinity for high performance perovskite solar cells using a porous hole transport layer from polystyrene nanospheres.

Organic-inorganic metal halide perovskites have led to remarkable advancements in emerging photovoltaics. The rapid increase in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of PSCs has been mainly achieved by improving perovskite morphology and crystallinity. Herein, we report a simple and effective means to improve perovskite grain sizes using a porous hole transport layer (i.e. , PEDOT: PSS in this work). We used polystyrene nanospheres as a sacrificial template to fabricate the porous-PEDOT:PSS. The growth of the CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite film on the porous-PEDOT:PSS substrate yields a dramatic improvement in crystallinity and an enhancement in perovskite grain sizes. When the porous structure was applied as a hole transport layer in PSCs with planar heterojunction structures, the efficiency was significantly enhanced from 15.33% for the planar device to 17.32%. This simple method for enhancing perovskite morphology and crystallinity paves the way for its application to other device architectures for enhanced photovoltaic performance.

[Study on the Effects of Alq3:CsF Composite Cathode Buffer Layer on the Performances of CuPc/C60 Solar Cells].

This paper introduces the methods improving the performance and stability of copper-phthalocyanine(CuPc) / fullerene (C60) small molecule solar cells by using tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum(Alq3): cesium fluoride(CsF) composite cathode buffer layer. The device with Alq3:CsF composite cathode buffer layer with a 4 wt. % CsF at a thickness of 5 nm exhibits a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up to 0.76%, which is an improvement of 49%, compared to a device with single Alq3 cathode buffer layer and half-lifetime of the cell in air at ambient circumstance without any encapsulation is almost 9.8 hours, 6 times higher than that of without buffer layer, so the stability is maintained. The main reason of the device performance improvement is that doping of CsF can adjust the interface energy alignment, optimize the electronic transmission characteristics of Alq3 and improve the short circuit current and the fill factor of the device using ultraviolet-visible absorption, external quantum efficiency and single-electron devices. Placed composite cathode buffer layer devices with different time in the air, by comparing and analyzing current voltage curve, Alq3:CsF can maintain a good stability as Alq3. Alq3:CsF layer can block the diffusion of oxygen and moisture so completely as to improve the lifetime of the device.

Visibly transparent organic photovoltaic with improved transparency and absorption based on tandem photonic crystal for greenhouse application.

We demonstrate a visible transparent organic photovoltaic (OPV) with improved transmission and absorption based on tandem photonic crystals (TPCs) for greenhouse applications. The proposed device has an average transmittance of 40.3% in the visible range of 400-700 nm and a high quality transparency spectrum for plant growth with a crop growth factor of 41.9%, considering the weight of the AM 1.5G solar spectrum. Compared with the corresponding transparent OPV without photonic crystals, an enhancement of 20.7% in the average transmittance and of 24.5% in the crop growth factor are achieved. Detailed investigations reveal that the improved transmittance is attributed to the excitation of the optical Tamm state and the light interference effect in TPC. Concomitantly, the total absorption efficiency in the active layer of the designed TPC based transparent OPV reaches 51.5%, being 1.78% higher than that of the transparent OPV without PC and 76% of that of the opaque counterpart. The improved absorption originates from the Bragg forbidden reflectance of TPC. Overall, our proposal achieves the optimized utilization of sunlight by light manipulation of TPC.

High-efficiency, broad-band and wide-angle optical absorption in ultra-thin organic photovoltaic devices.

Metal nanogratings as one of the promising architectures for effective light trapping in organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have been actively studied over the past decade. Here we designed a novel metal nanowall grating with ultra-small period and ultra-high aspect-ratio as the back electrode of the OPV device. Such grating results in the strong hot spot effect in-between the neighboring nanowalls and the localized surface plasmon effect at the corners of nanowalls. These combined effects make the integrated absorption efficiency of light over the wavelength range from 400 to 650 nm in the active layer for the proposed structure, with respect to the equivalent planar structure, increases by 102% at TM polarization and by 36.5% at the TM/TE hybrid polarization, respectively. Moreover, it is noted that the hot spot effect in the proposed structure is more effective for ultra-thin active layers, which is very favorable for the exciton dissociation and charge collection. Therefore such a nanowall grating is expected to improve the overall performance of OPV devices.

High-efficiency, broad-band and wide-angle optical absorption in ultra-thin organic photovoltaic devices.

Metal nanogratings as one of the promising architectures for effective light trapping in organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have been actively studied over the past decade. Here we designed a novel metal nanowall grating with ultra-small period and ultra-high aspect-ratio as the back electrode of the OPV device. Such grating results in the strong hot spot effect in-between the neighboring nanowalls and the localized surface plasmon effect at the corners of nanowalls. These combined effects make the integrated absorption efficiency of light over the wavelength range from 400 to 650 nm in the active layer for the proposed structure, with respect to the equivalent planar structure, increases by 102% at TM polarization and by 36.5% at the TM/TE hybrid polarization, respectively. Moreover, it is noted that the hot spot effect in the proposed structure is more effective for ultra-thin active layers, which is very favorable for the exciton dissociation and charge collection. Therefore such a nanowall grating is expected to improve the overall performance of OPV devices.