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Graded bandgap perovskite solar cells

Nature Materials volume 16, pages 522–525 (2017)Cite this article

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A Retraction to this article was published on 23 January 2018

This article has been updated

Abstract

Organic–inorganic halide perovskite materials have emerged as attractive alternatives to conventional solar cell building blocks. Their high light absorption coefficients and long diffusion lengths suggest high power conversion efficiencies1,2,3,4,5, and indeed perovskite-based single bandgap and tandem solar cell designs have yielded impressive performances1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16. One approach to further enhance solar spectrum utilization is the graded bandgap, but this has not been previously achieved for perovskites. In this study, we demonstrate graded bandgap perovskite solar cells with steady-state conversion efficiencies averaging 18.4%, with a best of 21.7%, all without reflective coatings. An analysis of the experimental data yields high fill factors of ∼75% and high short-circuit current densities up to 42.1 mA cm−2. The cells are based on an architecture of two perovskite layers (CH3NH3SnI3 and CH3NH3PbI3−xBrx), incorporating GaN, monolayer hexagonal boron nitride, and graphene aerogel.

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Figure 1: Cross-sectional schematic and SEM images of perovskite cell with integral monolayer h-BN and graphene aerogel.
Figure 2: Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of perovskite cells with (W/) and without (W/O) monolayer h-BN or graphene aerogel (GA) components.
Figure 3: Response characteristic of perovskite cells, with and without h-BN and graphene aerogel.
Figure 4: Time evolution of perovskite cell performance, with steady state histogram and best-cell current-voltage response.

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Change history

  • 20 December 2017

    The authors of the study are retracting this Letter due to concerns about the reproducibility of the photovoltaic architecture performance presented, and with the interpretation of the data included in the manuscript and Supplementary Information. This Letter presented solar cells based on two perovskite layers separated by a monolayer of hexagonal boron nitride, deposited on graphene aerogel. The large variability of the current–voltage and spectral response of nominally identical devices and the rapid time evolution of key photovoltaic parameters undermine the authors' confidence in the conclusions that can be drawn at this stage regarding the performance of these architectures, and they therefore wish to retract the Letter. All the authors agree with the retraction.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank B. Lechene (A. Arias group) and D. Hellebusch, S. Hawks and N. Bronstein (P. Alivisatos group) for use of the solar simulator, J. Kim and C. Jin (F. Wang group) for PL measurements and discussions, E. Cardona (O. Dubon group) for XRD measurements, L. Leppert (J. Neaton group) for valuable discussions on investigation of bandgap alignment, and T. Moiai and K. Emery (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) for valuable technical discussions on calibration, J–V measurements, and EQE measurements. This research was supported in part by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, which provided for PL measurements under an LDRD award, and, within the sp2-bonded materials program (KC2207), for the design of the experiment and material characterization; the National Science Foundation under Grant 1542741, which provided for photovoltaic response characterization; and by the Office of Naval Research (MURI) under Grant N00014-16-1-2229, which provided for h-BN growth. This work was additionally supported by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under the auspices of the US Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 through LDRD 13-LW-099, which provided for graphene aerogel synthesis. S.M.G. acknowledges support from the NSF Graduate Fellowship Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

    Onur Ergen, S. Matt Gilbert, Thang Pham, Sally J. Turner, Mark Tian Zhi Tan & Alex Zettl

  2. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

    Onur Ergen, S. Matt Gilbert, Thang Pham & Alex Zettl

  3. Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

    Onur Ergen, S. Matt Gilbert, Thang Pham, Sally J. Turner & Alex Zettl

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

    Sally J. Turner

  5. Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA

    Marcus A. Worsley

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Contributions

O.E., S.M.G., T.P., S.J.T. and A.Z. designed the experiments. O.E., S.M.G., T.P., S.J.T. and M.T.Z.T. carried out experiments. O.E., S.M.G., T.P., S.J.T., M.T.Z.T. and A.Z. contributed to analysing the data. O.E. and A.Z. wrote the paper, and all authors provided valuable feedback.

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Correspondence to Alex Zettl.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Ergen, O., Gilbert, S., Pham, T. et al. Graded bandgap perovskite solar cells. Nature Mater 16, 522–525 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4795

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