Stable Perovskite Solar Cells Using Molecularly Engineered Functionalized Oligothiophenes as Low-Cost Hole-Transporting Materials

Abstract

Triarylamine-substituted bithiophene (BT-4D), terthiophene (TT-4D), and quarterthiophene (QT-4D) small molecules are synthesized and used as low-cost hole-transporting materials (HTMs) for perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The optoelectronic, electrochemical, and thermal properties of the compounds are investigated systematically. The BT-4D, TT-4D, and QT-4D compounds exhibit thermal decomposition temperature over 400 °C. The n-i-p configured perovskite solar cells (PSCs) fabricated with BT-4D as HTM show the maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.34% owing to its better hole-extracting properties and film formation compared to TT-4D and QT-4D, which exhibit PCE of 17% and 16%, respectively. Importantly, PSCs using BT-4D demonstrate exceptional stability by retaining 98% of its initial PCE after 1186 h of continuous 1 sun illumination. The remarkable long-term stability and facile synthetic procedure of BT-4D show a great promise for efficient, stable, and low-cost HTMs for PSCs for commercial applications.

Keywords: functionalized oligothiophenes; low-cost hole transporting material; n-i-p configuration; stable perovskite solar cells.