Perovskite-Betavoltaic Cells: A Novel Application of Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Halide Perovskites

Abstract

Betavoltaic devices are very appealing to applications in out-space exploration, deep-sea facilities, and implantable medical devices for their ultralong lifetime and high power density. The key to further improve the betavoltaic device efficiency is to find proper semiconductor materials with long carrier diffusion lengths and having strong interactions with β-particles. Halide perovskite would be a promising candidate material for betavoltaics due to the long carrier diffusion length, the high defect tolerance, the strong interaction with β-particles, and the wide adjustable band gap. Until now, little research has been done on perovskite-betavoltaic devices. In this work, we demonstrated a prototype perovskite-betavoltaic cell with a power conversion efficiency of 3.56% and a maximum output power of 534 nW, under electron radiation equivalent to a 10 keV and 253 mCi source mimicked by an electron gun. The device efficiency can be further improved via the device structure optimization and advanced device fabrication technique. Excellent power conversion efficiencies of 21.0 and 19.6% can be achieved for the ⁶³Ni and ³H perovskite-betavoltaic devices based on results of the Geant4 simulation, respectively. These results indicate the brilliant prospects of perovskite materials in betavoltaic power sources.