Real-space observation of unbalanced charge distribution inside a perovskite-sensitized solar cell

Victor W. Bergmann, Stefan A. L. Weber, F. Javier Ramos, Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin, Michael Grätzel, Dan Li, Anna L. Domanski, Ingo Lieberwirth, Shahzada Ahmad () and Rüdiger Berger ()
Additional contact information
Victor W. Bergmann: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Stefan A. L. Weber: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
F. Javier Ramos: Abengoa Research, C/Energía Solar no 1, Campus Palmas Altas
Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Michael Grätzel: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Dan Li: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Anna L. Domanski: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Ingo Lieberwirth: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research
Shahzada Ahmad: Abengoa Research, C/Energía Solar no 1, Campus Palmas Altas
Rüdiger Berger: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Perovskite-sensitized solar cells have reached power conversion efficiencies comparable to commercially available solar cells used for example in solar farms. In contrast to silicon solar cells, perovskite-sensitized solar cells can be made by solution processes from inexpensive materials. The power conversion efficiency of these cells depends substantially on the charge transfer at interfaces. Here we use Kelvin probe force microscopy to study the real-space cross-sectional distribution of the internal potential within high efficiency mesoscopic methylammonium lead tri-iodide solar cells. We show that the electric field is homogeneous through these devices, similar to that of a p-i-n type junction. On illumination under short-circuit conditions, holes accumulate in front of the hole-transport layer as a consequence of unbalanced charge transport in the device. After light illumination, we find that trapped charges remain inside the active device layers. Removing these traps and the unbalanced charge injection could enable further improvements in performance of perovskite-sensitized solar cells.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms6001 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms6001

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6001

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().