Publications

Energy Materials Laboratory

Publications

Improving Uniformity and Reproducibility of Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells via a Low-Temperature Vacuum Deposition Process for NiOx Hole Transport Layers
Authors
S. R. Pae, S. Byun, J. Kim, M. Kim, I. Gereige, B. Shin
Vol
10 (1)
Page
534-540
Year
2018

Recently, the trend in inverted hybrid perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) has been to utilize NiOx as hole transport layers. However, the majority of reported solution-processed NiOx films require a high-temperature thermal annealing process, which is unfavorable for large-scale manufacturing and suffers from lack of uniformity. We report, for the first time, e-beam evaporation as a low-temperature vacuum process for the deposition of NiOx hole transport layers for PVSCs. Device characterization shows that efficiency is on par with solution-processed methods, the highest efficiency at 15.4% with no obvious hysteresis. Differences are found to be due to the presence of more Ni3+ in e-beam evaporated NiOx, which are responsible for a lower transmittance but higher conductivity. Most importantly, e-beam-evaporated NiOx-based PVSCs show greater uniformity and reproducibility compared to spin-coated NiOx-based PVSCs. Finally, e-beam-evaporated NiOx has the additional advantage of being produced by a low-temperature deposition process and applicable over large areas. This work, therefore, represents a significant step toward large-area PVSCs, where e-beam evaporation can be used for the low-temperature uniform deposition of charge-transport layers, such as NiOx.