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Increasing open circuit voltage by adjusting work function of hole-transporting materials in perovskite solar cells

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Abstract

A series of conductive polymers, i.e., poly(3-methylthiophene) (PMT), poly(thiophene) (PT), poly(3-bromothiophene) (PBT) and poly(3-chlorothiophene) (PCT), were prepared via the electrochemical polymerization process. Subsequently, their application as hole-transporting materials (HTMs) in CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite solar cells was explored. It was found that rationally increasing the work function of HTMs proves beneficial in improving the open circuit voltage (V oc) of the devices with an ITO/conductive-polymer/CH3NH3PbI3/C60/BCP/Ag structure. In addition, the higher-V oc devices with a higher-work-function HTM exhibited higher recombination resistances. The highest open circuit voltage of 1.04 V was obtained from devices with PCT, with a work function of–5.4 eV, as the hole-transporting layer. Its power conversion efficiency attained a value of approximately 16.5%, with a high fill factor of 0.764, an appreciable open voltage of 1.01 V and a short circuit current density of 21.4 mA·cm–2. This simple, controllable and low-cost manner of preparing HTMs will be beneficial to the production of large-area perovskite solar cells with a hole-transporting layer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Weibo Yan, Senyun Ye, Yunlong Li, Haixia Rao, Zhiwei Liu, Zuqiang Bian & Chunhui Huang

  2. State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yu Li & Shufeng Wang

Authors
  1. Weibo Yan
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  2. Yu Li
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  3. Senyun Ye
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  4. Yunlong Li
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  5. Haixia Rao
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  6. Zhiwei Liu
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  7. Shufeng Wang
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  8. Zuqiang Bian
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  9. Chunhui Huang
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Correspondence to Shufeng Wang or Zuqiang Bian.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Yan, W., Li, Y., Ye, S. et al. Increasing open circuit voltage by adjusting work function of hole-transporting materials in perovskite solar cells. Nano Res. 9, 1600–1608 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1054-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1054-5

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