Preparation and characterization of low-temperature carbon electrode for perovskite solar cells applications

Abstract

This research presents the preparation and characterization of low-temperature carbon electrode for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) applications. Herein, carbon films were successfully prepared utilizing an ethanol solvent interlacing process with optimization of the carbon films preparation. There are four considering parameters included solvent interlacing time, thickness of the carbon films, pressing time and pressing temperature. With time optimization, the resulting carbon films exhibited good flexibility inducing tight adhesion onto the hole transporting layer as well as excellent electrical properties. Furthermore, the effect of carbon film thickness, pressing time, and pressing temperature resulted in changes in interface morphologies and electrical properties. The carbon films were then applied as working electrodes in PSCs. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the devices was achieved 12.2% using the soaked carbon films at 2 h, thickness of 60 μm and pressing time at 180 s. Moreover, the device exhibits excellent long-term stability of 80% over 1000 h in air environment without encapsulation. In addition, the heated carbon films at 50 C improved the efficiency of the carbon-based PSCs (C-PSCs) and the efficiency of the heat devices increased to 14.1% due to the better interface contact between the HTL and carbon. Finally, this simple and effective technique proposes an alternate choice for developing efficient C-PSCs.