Extending the Photovoltaic Response of Perovskite Solar Cells into the Near-Infrared with a Narrow-Bandgap Organic Semiconductor.

Typical lead-based perovskites solar cells show an onset of photogeneration around 800 nm, leaving plenty of spectral loss in the near-infrared (NIR). Extending light absorption beyond 800 nm into the NIR should increase photocurrent generation and further improve photovoltaic efficiency of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Here, a simple and facile approach is reported to incorporate a NIR-chromophore that is also a Lewis-base into perovskite absorbers to broaden their photoresponse and increase their photovoltaic efficiency. Compared with pristine PSCs without such an organic chromophore, these solar cells generate photocurrent in the NIR beyond the band edge of the perovskite active layer alone. Given the Lewis-basic nature of the organic semiconductor, its addition to the photoactive layer also effectively passivates perovskite defects. These films thus exhibit significantly reduced trap densities, enhanced hole and electron mobilities, and suppressed illumination-induced ion migration. As a consequence, perovskite solar cells with organic chromophore exhibit an enhanced efficiency of 21.6%, and substantively improved operational stability under continuous one-sun illumination. The results demonstrate the potential generalizability of directly incorporating a multifunctional organic semiconductor that both extends light absorption and passivates surface traps in perovskite active layers to yield highly efficient and stable NIR-harvesting PSCs.

The Growth of Photoactive Porphyrin-Based MOF Thin Films Using the Liquid-Phase Epitaxy Approach and their Optoelectronic Properties.

This study reports on the optoelectronic properties of porphyrin-based metal-organic framework (MOF) thin films fabricated by a facile liquid-phase epitaxy approach. This approach affords the growth of MOF thin films that are free of morphological imperfections, more suitable for optoelectronic applications. Chemical modifications such as the porphyrin ligand metallation have been found to preserve the morphology of the grown films making this approach particularly suitable for molecular alteration of MOF thin film optoelectronic properties without compromising its mesoscale morphology significantly. Particularly, the metallation of the ligand was found to be effective to tune the MOF bandgap. These porphyrin-based MOF thin films were shown to function effectively as donor layers in solar cells based on a Fullerene-C60 acceptor. The ability to fabricate MOF solar cells free of a liquid-phase acceptor greatly simplifies device fabrication and enables pairing of MOFs as light absorbers with a wide range of acceptors including non-fullerene acceptors.