Manufacture of High-Efficiency and Stable Lead-Free Solar Cells through Antisolvent Quenching Engineering

Abstract

Antisolvent quenching has shown to significantly enhance several perovskite films used in solar cells; however, no studies have been conducted on its impact on MASnI3. Here, we investigated the role that different antisolvents, i.e., diethyl ether, toluene, and chlorobenzene, have on the growth of MASnI3 films. The crystallinity, morphology, topography, and optical properties of the obtained thin films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence (PL) measurements, and UV–visible spectroscopy. The impact of the different antisolvent treatments was evaluated based on the surface homogeneity as well as the structure of the MASnI3 thin films. In addition, thermal annealing was optimized to control the crystallization process. The applied antisolvent was modified to better manage the supersaturation process. The obtained results support the use of chlorobenzene and toluene to reduce pinholes and increase the grain size. Toluene was found to further improve the morphology and stability of thin films, as it showed less degradation after four weeks under dark with 60% humidity. Furthermore, we performed a simulation using SCAPS-1D software to observe the effect of these antisolvents on the performance of MASnI3-based solar cells. We also produced the device FTO/TiO2/MASnI3/Spiro-OMeTAD/Au, obtaining a remarkable photoconversion efficiency (PCE) improvement of 5.11% when using the MASnI3 device treated with chlorobenzene. A PCE improvement of 9.44% was obtained for the MASnI3 device treated with toluene, which also showed better stability. Our results support antisolvent quenching as a reproducible method to improve perovskite devices under ambient conditions.