3. Results and Discussion
The main target of this study is to enhance the performances of PSCs to be more realistic for commercialization of PSCs. A solvent additive doped PEDOT:PSS was used as a hole transporting layer of invert type PSCs which known as a favorable processing method to prepare a large-scale PSCs because of the formation of a smooth surface and a more uniform perovskite layer through the electrostatic effect of the solvent additives contained in the PEDOT:PSS [
17]. It is well known that the quality of perovskite grain growth is affected by the smoothness of the PEDOT:PSS layer [
18,
19,
20]. DIO has widely used as a surfactant in organic solar cell industry to improve the morphology and control phase separation of two immiscible donor-acceptor materials. DIO also used as an additive for perovskite precursor solution to improve the crystallinity of the perovskite crystal [
21,
22].
The optimum solvent additive doping rate was obtained by changing composition ratio of dopant DIO against PEDOT:PSS.
Figure 1 shows the change in the open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current density (Jsc), fill factor (FF), power conversion efficiency (PCE) according to the composition ratio of the additive.
The device performances are summarized in
Table 1.
All of the measured device performances were averaged over at least 10 devices. The best device performance was obtained with 2 wt% doping ratio and the Voc, Jsc, FF, and PCE of PSC at AM 1.5 100 mW/cm2 condition were 0.991 ± 0.024 V, 21.04 ± 0.86 mA/cm2, 0.692 ± 0.010, and 14.42 ± 0.39 %, respectively. Since the best device performance was obtained with 2 wt% doping condition, all other studies were proceeded with this doping ratio. The PCE of the device fabricated on the un-doped PEDOT:PSS layer with conventional thermal annealing was 13.20 ± 0.31. Therefore, it can be concluded that doped PEDOT:PSS hole transporting layer increased the PCE of the device about 10%.
To find out electrostatic effect of dopant (i.e. the surface ion density of the hole transporting layer) on the device performances, the solvent additive DIO was changed to 1,8-dichlorooctane (DCO). Since electronegativity of chlorine atom (3.16) is higher than that for iodine atom (2.66), Pb
2+ ions included in perovskite crystal should be more strongly held through electrostatic interaction between chlorine atoms and lead ions. The devices were prepared as same method as DIO; however, due to the molecular weight differences between iodide and chlorine (the molecular weight of DCO is 183.12 g/mol, while that for DIO is 366.02g/mol), the same dopant mole ratio to PEDOT was reduced to 1 wt%.
Table 2 summarizes the device performances with DCO as a dopant. Once again, the device doped with 1 wt% DCO showed the best device performances.
The Voc, Jsc, FF, and PCE of PSC at AM 1.5 100 mW/cm2 condition were 1.027 ± 0.008 V, 20.68 ± 0.62 mA/cm2, 0.673 ± 0.038, and 14.27 ± 0.52 %, respectively. The PCEs of the devices doped with DIO and DCO were within the experimental error range, so that it could conclude that the electrostatic effect of dopant on the device performance was very weak.
The surface roughness effect on the device performances was tested by preparing three different hole transporting layers (un-doped PEDOT:PSS film, DIO-doped PEDOT:PSS film, DCO-doped PEDOT:PSS film). Perovskite film was fabricated on these hole transporting layers by one-step method explained in “Experimental” section.
Figure 2 shows AFM topology images of the perovskite grain fabricated on these hole transporting layers.
The rms (root mean square) roughness values were 17.15 nm, 10.83 nm and 13.59 nm, respectively. The surface roughness was the lowest for the perovskite film coated on the DIO-doped PEDOT:PSS layer. Since the perovskite film was formed on PEDOT:PSS layer, it was concluded that the smoother the PEDOT:PSS film, the smoother the perovskite film. To study the effect of doping on perovskite crystallinity, X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was proceeded.
Figure 3 shows the XRD images of the film formed on the three different hole transporting layers.
Diffraction peaks appeared at 2θ = 14, 28, and 32°, which assign to the (110), (220), and (310) planes of the tetragonal CH
3NH
3PbI
3 perovskite structures [
23]. Comparing the XRD peak intensity, it was clear that the crystallinity of perovskite films formed on the doped hole transporting films (both DIO and DCO) were higher. The surface roughness effect on the device performances was studied by forming device on these three different hole transporting layers. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurement as shown in
Figure 4 confirms the higher photon absorption in the range of 350 - 800 nm for the PSCs with additives compared to that for without additives.
The integral current density of the EQE spectra over the AM 1.5G solar emission spectrum shows over 20 mA/cm
2 for the device with additives and about 18 mA/cm
2 for the device without additives. The trend of EQE spectra was consistent with the results of the I-V curve. The PCE of the device formed on the doped hole transporting films (both DIO and DCO) showed about 10% enhanced efficiency compare to that for formed on un-doped hole transporting film (
Table 1 and
Table 2). This increase is exactly the same amount as the increase in PCE by doping the PEDOT:PSS layer.
To analyze the doping effect on the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS layer, the sheet resistance was measured using four probe methods [
24]. The sheet resistances of un-doped PEDOT:PSS film, DIO-doped PEDOT:PSS film, DCO-doped PEDOT:PSS film coated on ITO glass were 181.8, 161.4 and 163.6 Ω, respectively. The thickness of the film that required to obtain this sheet resistance was measured by SEM, which turned out to be 30.6 nm. The final conductivity of un-doped PEDOT:PSS film, DIO-doped PEDOT:PSS film, DCO doped PEDOT:PSS film were 1796, 2023, 1996 S/cm, respectively. The solvent additive doping of PEDOT:PSS increased the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS film. The conductivity of both DIO- and DCO-doped PEDOT:PSS film were within the experimental error range, so that it could conclude that the conductivity of these doped PEDOT:PSS film were same. Combining these electrostatic, surface roughness and conductivity results, the device performance enhancement was mainly caused by smoother surface formation and conductivity increase by doping HTL.
Enhancement in the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS film was also proved by increase in the charge transfer rate of the perovskite crystal to PRDOT:PSS. To evaluate the charge transfer from the perovskite layer to PEDOT:PSS film, fluorescence emission intensity was measured using a structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS (with or without solvent additive)/perovskite sample. As shown in
Figure 5, a greater extent of fluorescence emission quenching (i.e. emission intensity decrease) was observed in the sample with DIO (device with microwave annealing showed higher emission quenching), indicating that the sample with DIO additive exhibited slightly higher quenching efficiency of excited state and better hole transport ability than the device with bare PEDOT:PSS.
Stability of the devices was tested using un-doped, DIO-doped and DCO-doped PEDOT:PSS films by measuring the time required for the PCE to fall below 80% of the initial value (LT80). The PCE measurements were proceeded at room temperature under ambient air conditions without device encapsulation.
Figure 6 shows the PCE changes with time for these devices.
The device with un-doped PEDOT:PSS film showed LT80 of 20 hours, while those of devices with both DIO- and DCO-doped PEDOT:PSS film showed LT80 of about 90 hours, which increased by 4.5 times compared to pristine device with un-doped PEDOT:PSS film. This enhancement in device stability was resulted from the passivation effect of the bottom of the perovskite by the additive alkyl di-halides [
14]. DIO showed slightly better LT80 between doping with DIO and DCO, and the XRD intensity and AFM roughness values were also slightly better for DIO-doped devices so that all devices were prepared with DIO doping.
PEDOT:PSS nanoparticles are dispersed in distilled water, it takes long time to anneal this spin coated PEDOT:PSS hole transporting layer (usually takes more than 10mins), which is another obstacle to the use of mass production methods such as roll-to-roll processing. Microwave annealing process was proceeded with a home-made power adjustable microwave equipment and compared with the conventional thermal annealing. The power of microwave was set to 200 W (power of general microwave oven is usually 800 ~ 1,000 W) and the PEDOT:PSS film was annealed for 10 s, rest for 10 s and annealed for another 10 s. The overall time required for microwave annealing was only 30 s, which is par less than that required for the conventional thermal annealing (typically 15 mins in 120 °C oven).
Table 3 summarizes the device performances according to annealing conditions.
The PCE of the device fabricated on the un-doped PEDOT:PSS film with conventional thermal annealing was 13.20 ± 0.31. While that for devices on 2 wt% DIO-doped PEDOT:PSS film was 14.42 ± 0.39 % for thermal annealing and 14.44 ± 0.54 for microwave annealing. Doping HTL increased the PCE of the device about 10%. When comparing annealing condition between microwave and thermal annealing, all device parameters (i.e. Voc, Jsc, FF, and PCE) were quite similar; therefore, it could be concluded that microwave annealing could provide the same device performance, while reducing processing time by 1/30th compared to thermal annealing.
The effect of post-annealing was studied using a very weak power microwave. The conventional microwave power is too strong that it cannot be used for fully fabricated devices (i.e. the device with metal electrode) because of reflection from the surface of metal. In this post-annealing study, the power of microwave was set to 50 W to penetrate through the metal electrode and vaporized the trace of moisture that contained inside of the device during fabrication processes. The fully fabricated devices were exposed to microwave for only 5 secs. The PCE was measured before and after microwave treatment. The fabricated devices were stored at ambient condition with relative humidity of 35% without device encapsulation.
Table 4 summarizes the PCE changes as a function of time.
Both un-doped and doped devices showed enhanced PCE after microwave treatment. The un-doped device failed one day after fabrication, while the DIO-doped device survived for 5 days and showed enhanced PCE after microwave treatment. From these results, it can be concluded that a low power microwave treatment could vaporize the trace of moisture and prolong the lifetime of the device.
To more effectively check the effect of doping on increasing the stability and lifetime of the devices, the active area was doubled in width and length. The area of cell was increased from 0.09 cm
2 to 0.36 cm
2.
Table 5 summarizes the best PCE of small and large-area device with different conditions.
The PCE of thermally annealed un-doped cell for 0.09 cm2 was 13.62 %, while that for 0.36 cm2 was 9.96 %. The PCE of thermally annealed 2 wt% DIO-doped cell for 0.09 cm2 was 15.03 %, while that for 0.36 cm2 was 12.15 %. The PCE of larger area cell was reduced less (about 27 % reduction for un-doped cell and about 19 % reduction for un-doped cell) for DIO doped cell, probably due to the better areal uniformity caused by smoother hole transporting layer through doping the PEDOT:PSS layer. The PCE of microwave annealed 2 wt% DIO-doped cell for 0.09 cm2 was 14.96 %, while that for 0.36 cm2 was 12.21 %. The PCE drop of larger area cell was about 18 % for this microwave annealing condition. Once again, the microwave annealing didn’t affect the device performance even for larger area cell. It could only reduce the time require for annealing to 1 / 30th compared to that of thermal annealing.
Long-term stability of the larger area device was also studied. The time required for LT80 condition was measured while the devices were exposure to 100 mW/cm
2 solar simulator light at relative humidity of 35% without device encapsulation [
Figure 7(a) and (b)].
Figure 7(a) shows 0.09 cm
2 cell data, which LT80 for un-doped cell was 3.4 hours and that for 2 wt% DIO-doped cell was 5.3 hours. The lifetime of doped device was enhanced about 1.6 times compare that for un-doped device.
Figure 7(b) shows 0.36 cm
2 cell data, which LT80 for un-doped cell was 2.7 hours and that for 2 wt% DIO-doped cell was 4.9 hours. The lifetime of doped larger size device was enhanced about 1.8 times compare to that for un-doped device. Even though the absolute value of LT80 for larger size cell decreased as the cell area increased (i.e. in the case of doped cell: 5.3 hours for 0.09 cm
2 cell and 4.9 hours for 0.36 cm
2 cell); however, as the size of the cell increased, the extent of lifetime enhancement by doping increased (i.e. 1.6 times for 0.09 cm
2 cell and 1.8 times for 0.36 cm
2 cell). Since the device lifetime was very short when the device was exposed to solar simulator light without an encapsulation, and to mimic a more realistic situation, the device storage method was changed. The devices were stored at relative humidity of 35% without device encapsulation; however,
Figure 7(c) and (d) show the PCE changes as a function of time for the devices stored in scattered light [
Figure 7(c)] and in dark [
Figure 7(d)].
Figure 7(c) shows the PCE changes for 0.09 cm
2 cell data, LT80s were dramatically increase compare to the devices exposed to the illumination with same device area [i.e.
Figure 7(a)].
LT80 for un-doped cell was 15 hours and that for 2 wt% DIO-doped cell was 78 hours. The lifetime enhancement for doped device was about 5.2 times compare that for un-doped device.
Figure 7(d) shows the PCE changes for 0.36 cm
2 cell data, LT80 for un-doped cell was 192 hours and that for 2 wt% DIO-doped cell was 540 hours. The lifetime enhancement for doped device was about 2.8 times compare that for un-doped device. From these experiments, it could be concluded that the differences in the lifetime between un-doped and doped devices decreased when the devices were stored at the dark environment.