Issue 30, 2020

Recent progress in hybrid perovskite solar cells through scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy

Abstract

Currently, sustainable renewable energy sources are urgently required to fulfill the cumulative energy needs of the world's 7.8 billion population, since the conventional coal and fossil fuels will be exhausted soon. Photovoltaic devices are a direct and efficient means to produce a huge amount of energy to meet these energy targets. In particular, hybrid-perovskite-based photovoltaic devices merit special attention not only due to their exceptional efficiency for generating appreciable energy but also their tunable band gaps and the ease of device fabrication. However, the commercialization of such devices suffers from the instability of the compositional materials. The cause of instability is the perovskite's structure and its morphology at the sub-molecular level; thereby revealing and eliminating these instabilities are a striking challenge. To address this issue, scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) presents a comprehensive method to allow the visualization of the morphology and electronic structure of materials at atomic-level resolution. Here, we review the recent developments of perovskite-based solar cells (PSCs), the STM/STS analysis of photoactive halide/hybrid and oxide materials, and the real-time STM/STS investigation of electronic structures with defects and traps that are believed to mainly affect device performances. The detailed STM/STS analysis can facilitate a better understanding of the properties of materials at the nanoscale. This informative study may hold great promise to advance the development of stable PSCs under atmospheric conditions.

Graphical abstract: Recent progress in hybrid perovskite solar cells through scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
05 May 2020
Accepted
20 Jun 2020
First published
07 Jul 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 15970-15992

Recent progress in hybrid perovskite solar cells through scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy

S. Sahare, P. Ghoderao, S. B. Khan, Y. Chan and S. Lee, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 15970 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR03499A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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