Microstructure characterisations for perovskite solar cells

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells form a new type of thin film photovoltaic technology, which has achieved extraordinary improvements in power conversion efficiency in a relatively short time. To further improve the efficiency and stability of the perovskite solar cells, it is critical to understand and control the microstructure of both the functional materials and their interfaces. Researchers in in Renewable Energy research group in Monash University are pioneers in microstructure characterisations for perovskite solar cells although it has proved particularly challenging due to the fragile nature of the organic-inorganic perovskites. They have already made a good progress in understanding the microstructure of perovskite solar cells such as twinning domains in CH3NH3PbI3 and halide segregation in CsPbIBr2 perovskite, and their influence on the device performance.

Reference:

  1. Mathias Uller Rothmann, Wei Li, Ye Zhu, Udo Bach, Leone Spiccia, Joanne Etheridge, Yi-Bing Cheng，Direct observation of intrinsic twin domains in tetragonal CH3NH3PbI3, Nature Communications, (2017) 14547.
  2. Wei Li, Mathias Uller Rothmann, Amelia Liu, Ziyu Wang, Yupeng Zhang, Alexander R. Pascoe, Jianfeng Lu, Liangcong Jiang, Yu Chen, Fuzhi Huang, Yong Peng, Qiaoliang Bao, Joanne Etheridge, Udo Bach, Yi-Bing Cheng, Phase segregation enhanced ion movement in efficient inorganic CsPbIBr2 solar cells, Advanced Energy Materials, (2017) 7, 1700946.
  3. Mathias Uller Rothmann, Wei Li, Joanne Etheridge, Yi-Bing Cheng, Microstructural characterisations of perovskite solar cells – from grains to interfaces: techniques, features, and challenges, Advanced Energy Materials; (2017), 7, 1602761.