Ultrathin HfAlO ferroelectrics enhancing electron transport and perovskite solar cell performance

abstract

Ferroelectric materials are promising for solar energy conversion due to the unique spontaneous polarization effect, leading to effective control of electron-hole recombination and potentially high power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells. Herein, the ultrathin ferroelectric hafnia alumina (HfAlO) films were obtained by atomic layer deposition and applied to modify the electron transport layer of PSCs. The XPS and AFM characterizations indicate that the Hf0.39Al0.10O films feature smooth, dense, and compact surface morphology. For the devices incorporating the ultrathin HfAlO films, the oriented ferroelectric effect-induced spontaneous polarization and internal electric field are crucial factors to enhance the charge separation during charge transfer. Accordingly, the short circuit current, open-circuit voltage, and power conversion efficiency (PCE) are increased by 11.8%, 9.0%, and 29.8%, respectively. Moreover, the HfAlO incorporating devices retained similar to 80% of the original PCE after 500 h ageing, much better than that of the pristine devices showing the retention of only similar to 50% of the original PCE.

subject category

Materials Science, Multidisciplinary

authors

Zhang, L; Fang, M; Fu, LS; Yang, LZ; Sang, LJ; Wang, DD; Liu, ZW; Chen, Q; Ostrikov, KK

our authors

acknowledgements

The project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11175024, 11375031, 11505013), Beijing Municipal National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 4162024), the collaborative innovation center of green printing & publishing technology (No. 20160113). K.O. thanks the Australian Research Council for partial support. This work was also supported by the China Scholarship Council, Grant: 201707920002 (2017-2020) and developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020, financed by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES.

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