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Research Article | Online first | Published: 14 March 2024

Structure-regulated fluorine-containing additives to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells

Show Author's Information Peiya Chen1,§,  Xiaoman Bi1,§,  Hao Yan1,  Yingjie Zhao1,  Yihao Liu1,  Zhuo Huang1,  Qian Xiao1,  Yongpeng Yang1,  Shasha Zhang1( ),  Yiqiang Zhang1( ),  Yanlin Song2( )
Henan Institute of Advanced Technology, College of Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
Key Laboratory of Green Printing, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), Beijing Engineering Research Center of Nanomaterials for Green Printing Technology, National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Beijing 100190, China

§ Peiya Chen and Xiaoman Bi contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
perovskite solar cells, defect passivation, fluorine number, additive structure, crystallization regulation
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Perovskite solar cells
Cite this article:
Chen P, Bi X, Yan H, et al. Structure-regulated fluorine-containing additives to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells. Nano Research, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-024-6554-0
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have seen remarkable progress in recent years, largely attributed to various additives that enhance both efficiency and stability. Among these, fluorine-containing additives have garnered significant interest because of their unique hydrophobic properties, effective defect passivation, and regulation capability on the crystallization process. However, a targeted structural approach to design such additives is necessary to further enhance the performance of PSCs. Here, fluoroalkyl ethylene with different fluoroalkyl chain lengths (CH2CH(CF2)nCF3, n = 3, 5, and 7) as liquid additives is used to investigate influences of fluoroalkyl chain lengths on crystallization regulation and defect passivation. The findings indicate that optimizing the quantity of F groups plays a crucial role in regulating the electron cloud distribution within the additive molecules. This optimization fosters strong hydrogen bonds and coordination effects with FA+ and uncoordinated Pb2+, ultimately enhancing crystal quality and device performance. Notably, 1H,1H,2H-perfluoro-1-hexene (PF3) with the optimal number of F presents the most effective modulation effect. A PSC utilizing PF3 achieves an efficiency of 24.05%, and exhibits exceptional stability against humidity and thermal fluctuations. This work sheds light on the importance of tailored structure designs in additives for achieving high-performance PSCs.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Structure-regulated fluorine-containing additives to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells

Show Author's information Peiya Chen1,§, Xiaoman Bi1,§, Hao Yan1, Yingjie Zhao1, Yihao Liu1, Zhuo Huang1, Qian Xiao1, Yongpeng Yang1, Shasha Zhang1( ), Yiqiang Zhang1( ), Yanlin Song2( )
Henan Institute of Advanced Technology, College of Chemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China
Key Laboratory of Green Printing, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), Beijing Engineering Research Center of Nanomaterials for Green Printing Technology, National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Beijing 100190, China

§ Peiya Chen and Xiaoman Bi contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have seen remarkable progress in recent years, largely attributed to various additives that enhance both efficiency and stability. Among these, fluorine-containing additives have garnered significant interest because of their unique hydrophobic properties, effective defect passivation, and regulation capability on the crystallization process. However, a targeted structural approach to design such additives is necessary to further enhance the performance of PSCs. Here, fluoroalkyl ethylene with different fluoroalkyl chain lengths (CH2CH(CF2)nCF3, n = 3, 5, and 7) as liquid additives is used to investigate influences of fluoroalkyl chain lengths on crystallization regulation and defect passivation. The findings indicate that optimizing the quantity of F groups plays a crucial role in regulating the electron cloud distribution within the additive molecules. This optimization fosters strong hydrogen bonds and coordination effects with FA+ and uncoordinated Pb2+, ultimately enhancing crystal quality and device performance. Notably, 1H,1H,2H-perfluoro-1-hexene (PF3) with the optimal number of F presents the most effective modulation effect. A PSC utilizing PF3 achieves an efficiency of 24.05%, and exhibits exceptional stability against humidity and thermal fluctuations. This work sheds light on the importance of tailored structure designs in additives for achieving high-performance PSCs.

Keywords: perovskite solar cells, defect passivation, fluorine number, additive structure, crystallization regulation

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 09 December 2023
Revised: 30 January 2024
Accepted: 06 February 2024
Published: 14 March 2024

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2024

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 62105293, 91963212, 52303257, and 52321006), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0208501), the Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (No. BNLMS-CXXM-202005), Graduate Education Reform Project of Henan Province (No. 2023SJGLX136Y), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. 2023TQ0300 and 2023M743171), the Key Scientific Research Projects of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province (No. 23A430017), the Outstanding Young Talent Research Fund of Zhengzhou University, Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Float Glass (No. 2022KF04), the Joint Research Project of Puyang Shengtong Juyuan New Materials Co., Ltd., and Outstanding Young Talents Innovation Team Support Plan of Zhengzhou University. The computational resources in this research were supported by the Henan Supercomputer Center. The authors also thank the Advanced Analysis & Computation Center at Zhengzhou University for materials and device characterization support.

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