Thermal Stability of Encapsulated Carbon-Based Multiporous-Layered-Electrode Perovskite Solar Cells Extended to Over 5000 h at 85 °C

Abstract

The key to the practical application of organometal–halide crystals perovskite solar cells (PSCs) is to achieve thermal stability through robust encapsulation. This paper presents a method to significantly extend the thermal stability lifetime of perovskite solar cells to over 5000 h at 85 °C by demonstrating an optimal combination of encapsulation methods and perovskite composition for carbon-based multiporous-layered-electrode (MPLE)-PSCs. We fabricated four types of MPLE-PSCs using two encapsulation structures (over- and side-sealing with thermoplastic resin films) and two perovskite compositions ((5-AVA)x(methylammonium (MA))1−xPbI3 and (formamidinium (FA))0.9Cs0.1PbI3), and analyzed the 85 °C thermal stability followed by the ISOS-D-2 protocol. Without encapsulation, FA0.9Cs0.1PbI3 exhibited higher thermal stability than (5-AVA)x(MA)1−xPbI3. However, encapsulation reversed the phenomenon (that of (5-AVA)x(MA)1−xPbI3 became stronger). The combination of the (5-AVA)x(MA)1−xPbI3 perovskite absorber and over-sealing encapsulation effectively suppressed the thermal degradation, resulting in a PCE value of 91.2% of the initial value after 5072 h. On the other hand, another combination (side-sealing on (5-AVA)x(MA)1−xPbI3 and over- and side-sealing on FA0.9Cs0.1PbI3) resulted in decreased stability. The FACs-based perovskite was decomposed from these degradation mechanisms by the condensation reaction between FA and carbon. For side-sealing, the space between the cell and the encapsulant was estimated to contain approximately 1,260,000 times more H2O than in over-sealing, which catalyzed the degradation of the perovskite crystals. Our results demonstrate that MA-based PSCs, which are generally considered to be thermally sensitive, can significantly extend their thermal stability after proper encapsulation. Therefore, we emphasize that finding the appropriate combination of encapsulation technique and perovskite composition is quite important to achieve further device stability.