Highly Stable Carbon-sandwiched Perovskite Solar Cells

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17H06609
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Energy-related chemistry
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: JEON IL 東京大学, 大学院工学系研究科(工学部), 特任講師 (00807563)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-08-25 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: Perovskite Solar Cells / Organic Solar Cells / Carbon Nanotube / Fullerene / Graphene / Polymer / Endohedral fullerene / Metallo fullerene

Outline of Final Research Achievements

My research was about replacement of conventional electrodes which limit the potentials of thin-film solar cells, namely, low-cost fabrication, and power conversion efficiency. I replaced metals, metal oxides, and indium tin oxides by using earth-abundant carbon allotropes, such as fullerene and carbon nanotubes. We discovered that fullerene can indeed replace metal oxides, which cause hysteresis in perovskite solar cells, and realise perovskite solar cells with no hysteresis. In addition, carbon nanotubes could replace the top metal electrodes, which lower the stability of perovskite materials, and function as a moisture barrier, enhancing the device stability even further. Thereby, we realised the carbon-sandwiched perovskite solar cells, which was publlished in J. Mater. Chem. A, 6, 1382. Moreovere, we used endohedral fullerene for the first time in device to replace hygroscopic dopant and improved the stability of perovskite solar cells greatly (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 57, 1).

Free Research Field

Material and Device Engineering

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

By demonstrating the carbon-sandwiched perovskite solar cells (J. Mater. Chem. A, 6, 1382) and endohedral fullerene dopant (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 57, 1), we already started to witness follow-up works citing our work. The stability of solar cells nowadays has improved greatly as well.