No Arabic abstract
The wide band gap methylammonium lead bromide perovskite is promising for applications in tandem solar cells and light-emitting diodes. Despite its utility, there is only a limited understanding of its reproducibility and stability. Herein, the dependence of the properties, performance, and shelf storage of thin films and devices on minute changes to the precursor solution stoichiometry is examined in detail. Although photovoltaic cells based on these solution changes exhibit similar initial performance, the shelf-storage depends strongly on the precursor solution stoichiometry. While all devices exhibit some degree of healing, the bromide-deficient films show a remarkable improvement, more than doubling in their photoconversion efficiency. Photoluminescence spectroscopy experiments performed under different atmospheres suggest that this increase is due in part to a trap healing mechanism that occurs upon exposure to the environment. Our results highlight the importance of understanding and manipulating defects in lead halide perovskites to produce long-lasting, stable devices.
The last five years have witnessed a remarkable progress in the field of lead halide perovskite materials and devices. Examining the existing body of literature reveals staggering inconsistencies in the reported results among different research groups with a particularly wide spread in the photovoltaic performance and stability of devices. In this work we demonstrate that fractional, quite possibly unintentional, deviations in the precursor solution stoichiometry can cause significant changes in the properties of the perovskite layer as well as in the performance and stability of perovskite photovoltaic devices. We show that while the absorbance and morphology of the layers remains largely unaffected, the surface composition and energetics, crystallinity, emission efficiency, energetic disorder and storage stability are all very sensitive to the precise stoichiometry of the precursor solution. Our results elucidate the origin of the irreproducibility and inconsistencies of reported results among different groups as well as the wide spread in device performance even within individual studies. Finally, we propose a simple experimental method to identify the exact stoichiometry of the perovskite layer that researchers can employ to confirm their experiments are performed consistently without unintentional variations in precursor stoichiometry.
Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials have emerged as promising candidates for thin film solar cells due to their wide bandgap range across the visible wavelengths, high absorption coefficient and ease of integration with both arbitrary substrates as well as conventional semiconductor technologies. However, reported TMD-based solar cells suffer from relatively low external quantum efficiencies (EQE) and low open circuit voltage due to unoptimized design and device fabrication. This paper studies $Pt/WSe_2$ vertical Schottky junction solar cells with various $WSe_2$ thicknesses in order to find the optimum absorber thickness.Also, we show that the photovoltaic performance can be improved via $Al_2O_3$ passivation which increases the EQE by up to 29.5% at 410 nm wavelength incident light. The overall resulting short circuit current improves through antireflection coating, surface doping, and surface trap passivation effects. Thanks to the ${Al_2O_3}$ coating, this work demonstrates a device with open circuit voltage ($V_{OC}$) of 380 mV and short circuit current density ($J_{SC}$) of 10.7 $mA/cm^2$. Finally, the impact of Schottky barrier height inhomogeneity at the $Pt/WSe_2$ contact is investigated as a source of open circuit voltage lowering in these devices
We report on the influence of the quantum well thickness on the effective band gap and conversion efficiency of In0.12Ga0.88N/GaN multiple quantum well solar cells. The band-to-band transition can be redshifted from 395 to 474 nm by increasing the well thickness from 1.3 to 5.4 nm, as demonstrated by cathodoluminescence measurements. However, the redshift of the absorption edge is much less pronounced in absorption: in thicker wells, transitions to higher energy levels dominate. Besides, partial strain relaxation in thicker wells leads to the formation of defects, hence degrading the overall solar cell performance.
The microstructure, mechanical properties and thermal stability of AlTiN and AlTiBN coatings grown by reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) have been analyzed as a function of Al/(Al+Ti) ratio, x, between 0.5 and 0.8. The coatings were predominantly formed by a face-centered cubic Ti(Al)N crystalline phase, both with and without B, even for x ratios as high as 0.6, which is higher than the ratio typically encountered for AlTiN coatings deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering. B doping, in combination with the highly energetic deposition conditions offered by HiPIMS, results in the suppression of the columnar grain morphology typically encountered in AlTiN coatings. On the contrary, the AlTiBN coatings grown by HiPIMS present a dense nanocomposite type microstructure, formed by nanocrystalline Ti(Al)N domains and amorphous regions composed of Ti(Al)B2 and BN. As a result, high-Al content (x>0.6) AlTiBN coatings grown by HiPIMS offer higher hardness, elasticity and fracture toughness than AlTiN coatings. Moreover, the thermal stability and the hot hardness are substantially enhanced, delaying the onset of formation of the detrimental hexagonal AlN phase from 850 C in the case of AlTiN, to 1000 C in the case of AlTiBN.
Despite the exceeding 23% photovoltaic efficiency achieved in organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells obtaining, the stable materials with desirable band gap are rare and are highly desired. With the aid of first-principles calculations, we predict a new promising family of nontoxic inorganic double perovskites (DPs), namely, silicon (Si)-based halides A$_{2}$SiI$_{6}$ (A = K, Rb, Cs; X = Cl, Br, I). This family containing the earth-abundant Si could be applied for perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Particularly A$_{2}$SiI$_{6}$ exhibits superb physical traits, including suitable band gaps of 0.84-1.15 eV, dispersive lower conduction bands, small carrier effective masses, wide photon absorption in the visible range. Importantly, the good stability at high temperature renders them as promising optical absorbers for solar cells.