Issue 28, 2019

A structure–property study of fluoranthene-cored hole-transporting materials enables 19.3% efficiency in dopant-free perovskite solar cells

Abstract

To date, most of the prevailing organic hole-transporting materials (HTMs) used in perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), such as spiro-OMeTAD and PTAA, generally require a sophisticated doping process to ensure their reasonable hole-transporting properties. Unfortunately, the employed dopants/additives and the associated oxidation reactions have been shown to deteriorate the long-term device stability seriously. The exploitation of efficient and stable dopant-free HTMs is thus strongly desired for PVSCs. However, effective molecular design strategies for dopant-free HTMs are still lacking. Thus far, only a few of them yielded comparable performance to their doped counterparts, while their synthetic costs are still high. In this work, a new class of cost-effective small molecule dopant-free HTMs have been developed using readily available fluoranthene as the structural framework. The structure–property correlation of the fluoranthene-based HTMs was carefully investigated by tuning their structural geometry (linear vs. branched), connection between electron-donating and electron-withdrawing moieties (single bond vs. ethylene), and the substitution position of the methoxy side-groups (para- vs. meta-). As a result, the optimized molecule, FBA3, was demonstrated to serve as an efficient dopant-free HTM in a conventional PVSC to deliver an impressive power conversion efficiency of 19.27%, representing one of the best cost-effective dopant-free organic HTMs reported thus far.

Graphical abstract: A structure–property study of fluoranthene-cored hole-transporting materials enables 19.3% efficiency in dopant-free perovskite solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
07 apr 2019
Accepted
04 iyn 2019
First published
04 iyn 2019
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2019,10, 6899-6907

A structure–property study of fluoranthene-cored hole-transporting materials enables 19.3% efficiency in dopant-free perovskite solar cells

X. Sun, F. Wu, C. Zhong, L. Zhu and Z. Li, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 6899 DOI: 10.1039/C9SC01697J

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