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Strongly emissive perovskite nanocrystal inks for high-voltage solar cells

Nature Energy volume 2, Article number: 16194 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

Lead halide perovskite semiconductors have recently gained wide interest following their successful embodiment in solid-state photovoltaic devices with impressive power-conversion efficiencies, while offering a relatively simple and low-cost processability. Although the primary optoelectronic properties of these materials have already met the requirement for high-efficiency optoelectronic technologies, industrial scale-up requires more robust processing methods, as well as solvents that are less toxic than the ones that have been commonly used so successfully on the lab-scale. Here we report a fast, room-temperature synthesis of inks based on CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals using short, low-boiling-point ligands and environmentally friendly solvents. Requiring no lengthy post-synthesis treatments, the inks are directly used to fabricate films of high optoelectronic quality, exhibiting photoluminescence quantum yields higher than 30% and an amplified spontaneous emission threshold as low as 1.5 μJ cm−2. Finally, we demonstrate the fabrication of perovskite nanocrystal-based solar cells, with open-circuit voltages as high as 1.5 V.

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Figure 1: Synthesis method and structural characterization of the CsPbBr3 NCs passivated with short ligands.
Figure 2: Optical characterization of CsPbBr3 NC inks in solution and in films.
Figure 3: CsPbBr3 high-voltage solar cells.

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  • 14 July 2017

    In the PDF version of this article previously published, the year of publication provided in the footer of each page and in the 'How to cite' section was erroneously given as 2017, it should have been 2016. This error has now been corrected. The HTML version of the article was not affected.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union 7th Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 614897 (ERC Consolidator Grant ‘TRANS-NANO’) from the Cariplo Foundation through grant agreement no. 2013-0656 (‘Green nanomaterials for next-generation photovoltaics, GREENS)’.

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Author notes

  1. Quinten A. Akkerman and Marina Gandini: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanochemistry Department, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy

    Quinten A. Akkerman, Francesco Di Stasio, Prachi Rastogi, Francisco Palazon, Giovanni Bertoni, Mirko Prato & Liberato Manna

  2. Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università degli Studi di Genova, Via Dodecaneso, 31, 16146, Genova, Italy

    Quinten A. Akkerman & Prachi Rastogi

  3. Center for Nano Science and Technology @Polimi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Giovanni Pascoli 70/3, 20133 Milano, Italy

    Marina Gandini, James M. Ball & Annamaria Petrozza

  4. Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza L. da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy

    Marina Gandini

  5. IMEM-CNR, Parco Area delle Scienze 37/A, 43124 Parma, Italy

    Giovanni Bertoni

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Contributions

Q.A.A., L.M., M.P. and A.P. conceived the experiments. Q.A.A. developed the synthesis of the nanocrystals inks, M.G. and J.M.B. fabricated and tested the solar cells, F.D.S. and P.R. studied the optical properties of the films and F.D.S. performed the ASE measurements, P.R. performed the cross-section, F.P. performed the XPS measurements, G.B. performed the HRTEM measurements and M.P. performed the UPS measurements. Q.A.A., M.G., J.M.B, A.P. and L.M. wrote the manuscript, with contributions from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Annamaria Petrozza or Liberato Manna.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1–16, Supplementary Tables 12 and Supplementary References. (PDF 4403 kb)

Supplementary Video 1

Video of CsPbBr3 nanocrystal synthesis. (MP4 3877 kb)

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Akkerman, Q., Gandini, M., Di Stasio, F. et al. Strongly emissive perovskite nanocrystal inks for high-voltage solar cells. Nat Energy 2, 16194 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.194

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