Perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Organolead halide perovskite has been found to have light harvesting property with high absorption coefficient and charge transporting and accumulation properties as well. Thus, perovskite can be used as either sensitizer or p-type or n-type light harvester. An all-solid-state perovskite solar cell based on organolead iodide demonstrated 9.7% in 2012 and 1 year later its efficiency increased to more than 15%, which implies that organolead halide perovskite is a promising solar cell material. The bandgap of 1.5 eV for CH3NH3PbI3 can be tuned by replacing A or B or X ions in the ABX3 perovskite structure within the allowed tolerance factors, which can further improve photovoltaic performance more than 20%. Since the perovskite layer is as thin as sub-micrometer levels, a perovskite solar cell can be classified as a new type of thin-film solar cell technology. Moreover, a perovskite solar cell will deliver low levelized solar power costs because the material and processing costs are expected to be 'dirt cheap'.