Curing perovskites — A way towards control of crystallinity and improved stability

Abstract

Power conversion efficiencies of lead halide perovskite solar cells have rapidly increased in the decade since their emergence, reaching 25% this year. However, reliable film uniformity and device stability remain hard to achieve and often require precise compliance with complicated protocols, which hampers upscaling towards industrial applications. Here, we explore the potential of an alternative route towards high-quality perovskite films: The reaction between a pre-existing perovskite film and methylamine (MA) gas has been shown to possess the striking ability to both improve film morphology and increase grain size drastically, boosting device performance. This post-deposition treatment could provide the means to decouple film quality from the initial deposition process, thus promising to facilitate upscaling and lowering production costs. Furthermore, such MA gas treatments show great promise regarding the stability of fabricated devices, as they open up the opportunity to reduce or even eliminate the adverse role of grain boundaries in film degradation.