Spiro‐Phenylpyrazole‐9,9′‐Thioxanthene Analogues as Hole‐Transporting Materials for Efficient Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract

Abstract Perovskite solar cells have emerged as a promising technique for low‐cost, light weight, and highly efficient photovoltaics. However, they still largely rely on 2,2′,7,7′‐tetrakis( N , N ‐di‐ p ‐methoxyphenylamine)‐9,9′‐spirobifluorene (Spiro‐OMeTAD) to serve as hole‐transporting materials (HTMs). Here, a series of HTMs with small molecular weight is designed, which are constructed on a spiro core involving phenylpyrazole and a second heteroaromatics, i.e., xanthene (O atom), thioxanthene (S atom), and acridine (N atom). Through varying from phenylpyrazole substituted xanthene ( PPyra‐XA ), thioxanthene ( PPyra‐TXA ), to acridine ( PPyra‐ACD ), their optical and electrochemical properties, hole mobilities, and the photovoltaic performance are optimized. As a consequence, PPyra‐TXA based device exhibits the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.06%, outperforming that of Spiro‐OMeTAD (16.15%), which could be attributed to the enhancement of hole mobility exerted by the thioxanthene. In addition, the dopant‐free device shows PCE of 11.7%. These results open a new direction for designing spiro‐HTMs by simple modification of chemical structures.