The highest power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) reported for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with inverted planar structures are still inferior to those of PSCs with regular structures, mainly because ...of lower open-circuit voltages (
). Here we report a strategy to reduce nonradiative recombination for the inverted devices, based on a simple solution-processed secondary growth technique. This approach produces a wider bandgap top layer and a more n-type perovskite film, which mitigates nonradiative recombination, leading to an increase in
by up to 100 millivolts. We achieved a high
of 1.21 volts without sacrificing photocurrent, corresponding to a voltage deficit of 0.41 volts at a bandgap of 1.62 electron volts. This improvement led to a stabilized power output approaching 21% at the maximum power point.
The performance of semiconductor devices is fundamentally governed by charge-carrier dynamics within the active materials1–6. Although advances have been made towards understanding these dynamics ...under steady-state conditions, the importance of non-equilibrium phenomena and their effect on device performances remains elusive7,8. In fact, the ballistic propagation of carriers is generally considered to not contribute to the mechanism of photovoltaics (PVs) and light-emitting diodes, as scattering rapidly disrupts such processes after carrier generation via photon absorption or electric injection9. Here we characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of carriers immediately after photon absorption in methylammonium lead iodide perovskite films using femtosecond transient absorption microscopy (fs-TAM) with a 10 fs temporal resolution and 10 nm spatial precision. We found that non-equilibrium carriers propagate ballistically over 150 nm within 20 fs of photon absorption. Our results suggest that in a typical perovskite PV device operating under standard conditions, a large fraction of carriers can reach the charge collection layers ballistically. The ballistic transport distance appears to be limited by energetic disorder within the materials, probably due to disorder-induced scattering. This provides a direct route towards optimization of the ballistic transport distance via improvements in materials and by minimizing the energetic disorder. Our observations reveal an unexplored regime of carrier transport in perovskites, which could have important consequences for device performance.Charge-carrier dynamics are fundamental to the operation and performance of semiconductor devices. In methylammonium lead iodide perovskites, carriers in the non-equilibrium regime after excitation propagate ballistically over 150 nm within 20 fs.
Charge transport in conjugated polymer semiconductors has traditionally been thought to be limited to a low-mobility regime by pronounced energetic disorder. Much progress has recently been made in ...advancing carrier mobilities in field-effect transistors through developing low-disorder conjugated polymers. However, in diodes these polymers have to date not shown much improved mobilities, presumably reflecting the fact that in diodes lower carrier concentrations are available to fill up residual tail states in the density of states. Here, we show that the bulk charge transport in low-disorder polymers is limited by water-induced trap states and that their concentration can be dramatically reduced through incorporating small molecular additives into the polymer film. Upon incorporation of the additives we achieve space-charge limited current characteristics that resemble molecular single crystals such as rubrene with high, trap-free SCLC mobilities up to 0.2 cm
/Vs and a width of the residual tail state distribution comparable to k
T.
Abstract Perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) based on three-dimensional (3D) polycrystalline perovskites suffer from ion migration, which causes overshoot of luminance over time during ...operation and reduces its operational lifetime. Here, we demonstrate 3D/2D hybrid PeLEDs with extremely reduced luminance overshoot and 21 times longer operational lifetime than 3D PeLEDs. The luminance overshoot ratio of 3D/2D hybrid PeLED is only 7.4% which is greatly lower than that of 3D PeLED (150.4%). The 3D/2D hybrid perovskite is obtained by adding a small amount of neutral benzylamine to methylammonium lead bromide, which induces a proton transfer from methylammonium to benzylamine and enables crystallization of 2D perovskite without destroying the 3D phase. Benzylammonium in the perovskite lattice suppresses formation of deep-trap states and ion migration, thereby enhances both operating stability and luminous efficiency based on its retardation effect in reorientation.
Electroluminescence efficiencies of metal halide perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) are limited by a lack of material strategies that can both suppress the formation of defects and enhance the charge ...carrier confinement. Here we report a one-dopant alloying strategy that generates smaller, monodisperse colloidal particles (confining electrons and holes, and boosting radiative recombination) with fewer surface defects (reducing non-radiative recombination). Doping of guanidinium into formamidinium lead bromide PNCs yields limited bulk solubility while creating an entropy-stabilized phase in the PNCs and leading to smaller PNCs with more carrier confinement. The extra guanidinium segregates to the surface and stabilizes the undercoordinated sites. Furthermore, a surface-stabilizing 1,3,5-tris(bromomethyl)-2,4,6-triethylbenzene was applied as a bromide vacancy healing agent. The result is highly efficient PNC-based light-emitting diodes that have current efficiency of 108 cd A−1 (external quantum efficiency of 23.4%), which rises to 205 cd A−1 (external quantum efficiency of 45.5%) with a hemispherical lens.Guanidinium doping is shown to enhance the operation of perovskite nanocrystal light-emitting diodes.
Metal-halide perovskites are at the frontier of optoelectronic research due to solution processability and excellent semiconductor properties. Here we use transient absorption spectroscopy to study ...hot-carrier distributions in CH3NH3PbI3 and quantify key semiconductor parameters. Above bandgap, non-resonant excitation creates quasi-thermalized carrier distributions within 100 fs. During carrier cooling, a sub-bandgap transient absorption signal arises at ∼ 1.6 eV, which is explained by the interplay of bandgap renormalization and hot-carrier distributions. At higher excitation densities, a 'phonon bottleneck' substantially slows carrier cooling. This effect indicates a low contribution from inelastic carrier-impurity or phonon-impurity scattering in these polycrystalline materials, which supports high charge-carrier mobilities. Photoinduced reflectivity changes distort the shape of transient absorption spectra and must be included to extract physical constants. Using a simple band-filling model that accounts for these changes, we determine a small effective mass of mr=0.14 mo, which agrees with band structure calculations and high photovoltaic performance.
State‐of‐the‐art light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) are made from high‐purity alloys of III–V semiconductors, but high fabrication cost has limited their widespread use for large area solid‐state lighting. ...Here, efficient and stable LEDs processed from solution with tunable color enabled by using phase‐pure 2D Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) halide perovskites with a formula (CH3(CH2)3NH3)2(CH3NH3)n−1PbnI3n+1 are reported. By using vertically oriented thin films that facilitate efficient charge injection and transport, efficient electroluminescence with a radiance of 35 W Sr−1 cm−2 at 744 nm with an ultralow turn‐on voltage of 1 V is obtained. Finally, operational stability tests suggest that phase purity is strongly correlated to stability. Phase‐pure 2D perovskites exhibit >14 h of stable operation at peak operating conditions with no droop at current densities of several Amperes cm−2 in comparison to mixtures of 2D/3D or 3D perovskites, which degrade within minutes.
Phase‐pure Ruddlesden–Popper layered perovskites (RPLPs) are investigated for light‐emitting diode application. This work demonstrates that RPLPs represent a promising candidate for optoeletronics and the crystal orientation of RPLPs plays a vital role in light‐emitting diode devices, resulting in external quantum efficiency ≈1% with ultralow turn‐on voltage.
Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites are emerging low-cost emitters with very high color purity, but their low luminescent efficiency is a critical drawback. We boosted the current efficiency (CE) of ...perovskite light-emitting diodes with a simple bilayer structure to 42.9 candela per ampere, similar to the CE of phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes, with two modifications: We prevented the formation of metallic lead (Pb) atoms that cause strong exciton quenching through a small increase in methylammonium bromide (MABr) molar proportion, and we spatially confined the exciton in uniform MAPbBr₃ nanograins (average diameter = 99.7 nanometers) formed by a nanocrystal pinning process and concomitant reduction of exciton diffusion length to 67 nanometers. These changes caused substantial increases in steady-state photoluminescence intensity and efficiency of MAPbBr₃ nanograin layers.