Advanced Neutron and Synchrotron Characterization Techniques for Nanocomposite Perovskite Materials Toward Solar Cells Applications

Abstract

Solar energy conversion represents one of the better options to replace carbon-based technology. Among a wide variety of available technologies, well stablished silicon solar cells entails almost 90% of the up-scale installed technology. Nevertheless, from a decade ago perovskite solar cells interrupted abruptly in the research community as an impressive material that triggers the power energy conversion from 3.9 to 20% in just five years, being currently above 25.5% and very close to silicon efficiencies. Its easy and cost-effective fabrication process as well as its tuneable opto-electronic properties make perovskite material very suitable to solar energy conversion. Although it presents an amphiphilic character and long carrier transport, usually two selective layers (hole and electron) are deposited to assist charge extraction. Therefore, the proper selection of those selective contacts contributes not only to the improvement of the final performance of the solar cells, but also to the intrinsic stability of the device. In addition, the layered structure nature of the perovskite devices requires a good connection and a perfect energy level alignment between layers. However, the lack of a deep understanding of the charge recombination process and some instability issues limit its implementation to industrial scale. This chapter gives a critical discussion about the materials and device design to improve opto-electronic properties and interfaces in different perovskites composition based solar cells. A discussion about the synthesis of perovskite solar cell devices is followed by a comprehensive dissertation on advanced neutron and synchrotron-based characterization techniques, which offer the possibility to disentangle the charge transport and degradation mechanism in perovskite solar cells.