Prolonged Lifetime of Perovskite Solar Cells Using a Moisture-Blocked and Temperature-Controlled Encapsulation System Comprising a Phase Change Material as a Cooling Agent

Abstract

Although the power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) reached up to 25% that made them comparable to the commercial solar cells, they are facing issues toward commercialization, especially their short lifetime. Remarkably, the most important key factors that regulate the durability of the devices are moisture, light, and heat. In this work, prolonging the device lifetime is focused by designing a flexible moisture-blocked and temperature-controlled encapsulation system. In this regard, a thermally adjusted phase change material is embedded in a polymer encapsulation layer to avoid the moisture diffusion, rapid temperature fluctuation, and undesired crystalline phase change of the perovskite layer in the PSCs under the operation condition. As a result, a 2 year stable device is achieved, whereas the reference device loses more than 50% of its performance after 10 days. Surprisingly, the charge transport resistance and recombination rate show no significant change during 450 days of storage, which confirms no increase in the defect density.