Liquid metal templating boosts printable perovskite solar cell efficiency
Printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cells offer strong potential as a scalable and stable alternative to conventional photovoltaics. However, their power conversion efficiency has long lagged behind planar perovskite cells due to restricted crystal growth within the mesoporous oxide scaffold. These constraints produce small grains that suffer from increased charge recombination.
To address this, Liu's team embedded liquid gallium nanodroplets in the mesoporous TiO2 layer. When exposed to air, the droplets form an ultrathin Ga2O3 shell that serves as a precise epitaxial template. Atomic-resolution imaging and density functional theory calculations confirmed that the MAPbI3 perovskite's (110) plane aligns perfectly with the Ga2O3 (400) surface, exhibiting a lattice mismatch of just 0.32%. This near-perfect alignment guides the formation of large, oriented perovskite crystals exceeding 200 nanometers within the confined structure.
The resulting device achieved a record 20.2% power conversion efficiency on a 0.10 cm area with negligible hysteresis. It also demonstrated remarkable durability, maintaining 97% of its initial performance after 3000 hours of continuous operation under high humidity (85% RH) and elevated temperature (55 C).
The study highlights the potential of liquid metal "sowing" to engineer crystal growth in confined systems and to advance the scalable manufacturing of high-performance, stable perovskite solar modules. The work was supported by multiple national and provincial programs in China, including the National Key R and D Program, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Yunnan Precious Metals Laboratory.
Research Report:Liquid Ga nanodroplet-templated heteroepitaxy of MAPbI3 for high-efficiency printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cells
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School of Materials and Energy, Yunnan University
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