2D Intermediate Suppression for Efficient Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) Phase Lead-Free Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract

2D Ruddlesden–Popper (2DRP) tin (Sn) perovskite solar cells (PSCs) play an irreplaceable role in advancing the commercialization of perovskite-based photovoltaic devices due to their low toxicity and improved stability. However, the efficiency of 2DRP Sn PSCs has not made a breakthrough owing to incompletely oriented crystal growth and poor film morphology, which is limited by a complex and uncontrollable crystallization process. Here, we first introduce the mixed spacer organic cations [n-butylamine (BA) and phenylethylamine (PEA)] in 2DRP Sn perovskite to control the crystallization process. We find that when the BA+ and PEA+ co-work to form [(BA0.5PEA0.5)2FA3Sn4I13] 2DRP perovskites, the intermediate phase impeding the homogeneous and ordered nucleation of the crystal is suppressed effectively, thus enabling a high-quality film morphology and improved crystal orientation. Benefitting from it, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is improved to 8.82%, which is the highest one among the 2DRP Sn PSCs as far as we known.