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Rapid advancements within photovoltaics realm necessitates swift fabrication of the modules using cheap materials through cost effective manufacturing processes to achieve short cost payback time. Photovoltaics manufacturing includes chemical processing of the materials followed by thermal annealing. Yet, long-term annealing of the materials using high temperature furnaces have remained the prevalent post-processing approach in industry which necessitates alternative methods to achieve high performance modules through rapid and economical processes. Intense pulse light (IPL) has been successfully applied as a promising rapid post-process annealing for various thin film photovoltaics, particularly to process the organic-inorganic perovskite solar cell (PSC) layers. In this paper, several results pertinent to the application of IPL on perovskite and SnO2 electron transport thin films are presented and the role of IPL on rapid thermal annealing (RTA) is explained. We show that swift fabrication of PSCs through IPL can result in efficiencies exceeding 16% when the Perovskite film is annealed with aid of CH2I2 alkyl halide additive in the ambient with 60% relative humidity. In addition, the synergy of IPL-alkyl halide interaction for other perovskite chemistries is introduced. We show that achieving to PSCs exceeding 12% efficiency was possible when the perovskite and SnO2 ETL was annealed sequentially through IPL.
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Rapid thermal annealing of CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 perovskite thin films by intense pulsed light with aid of diiodomethane additive
The organic metal halide perovskite material is capable of high throughput manufacturing via traditional deposition processes used in roll-to-roll, yet thermal annealing post deposition may require long ovens. We report rapid annealed perovskite thin films using intense pulsed light (IPL) to initiate a radiative thermal response that is enabled by an alkyl halide additive that collectively improves the performance of a device processed in an ambient environment from a baseline of 10 to 16.5% efficiency. Previous reports on CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 perovskite films using IPL processing achieved functional devices in milli-second time scales and are promising for high throughput manufacturing processes under ambient conditions. In this study, we found that the addition of diiodomethane (CH 2 I 2 ) as an additive to the methylammonium iodide (MAI)/lead iodide (PbI 2 ) precursor ink chemistry and subsequent IPL thermal annealing are inter-dependent. The concentration of CH 2 I 2 and IPL processing parameters have a direct effect on the surface morphology of the films and performance within a perovskite solar cell (PSC). The CH 2 I 2 dissociates under exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the IPL source liberating iodine ions in the film, influencing the perovskite formation and reducing the defect states. We anticipate that these results can be utilized to further develop different ink formulations using alkyl halides for the IPL technique to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells processed in ambient conditions.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1828355
- PAR ID:
- 10100869
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Materials Chemistry A
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 20
- ISSN:
- 2050-7488
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 9378 to 9383
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1039/c8ta01237g
