All-solid-state mesoscopic solar cells: From dye-sensitized to perovskite

Abstract

As one of candidates of the next generation solar cells, mesoscopic solar cells offer a wide application prospect due to the advantages of abundant raw materials, simple fabrication process, high power conversion efficiency and so on. This review presents a brief overview on the progress of solid-state mesoscopic solar cells in new materials, new technologies and new concepts from dye-sensitized solar cells to perovskite solar cells. In 1998, Grätzel group firstly incorporated solid- state organic hole transport materials spiro-OMeTAD into dye-sensitized solar cell, and fabricated an all-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell. Though this device only obtained an efficiency of 0.74%, all-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells became an important direction in the field of mesoscopic solar cells. In 2012, Park group and Grätzel group employed a perovskite absorber (CH3NH3)PbI3 as the sensitizer, and spiro-OMeTAD as the hole collecting layer, developing an all-solid-state mesoscopic solar cell, which was also named perovskite solar cell, with the efficiency of up to 9.7%. Since then, mesoscopic perovskite solar cells based on perovskite materials quickly become a hot topic in the field of solar cell. Presently, the highest certificated power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells has reached to 20.1%. As a milestone in the development history of mesoscopic solar cells, perovskite solar cells still have many challenges in material developing, interface engineering, and device stability, and are expecting new breakthroughs in the future.