An efficient hole transport material composite based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) and bamboo-structured carbon nanotubes for high performance perovskite solar cells

Abstract

In this work, we have developed a new efficient hole transport material (HTM) composite based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and bamboo-structured carbon nanotubes (BCNs) for CH₃NH₃PbI₃ (MAPbI₃) based perovskite solar cells. Compared to pristine P3HT, it is found that the crystallinity of P3HT was significantly improved by addition of BCNs, which led to over one order of magnitude higher conductivity for the composite containing 1–2 wt% BCNs in P3HT. In the meantime, the interfacial charge transfer between the MAPbI₃ light absorbing layer and the HTM composite layer based on P3HT/BCNs was two-fold faster than pristine P3HT. More importantly, the HTM film with a superior morphological structure consisting of closely compact large grains was achieved with the composite containing 1 wt% BCNs in P3HT. The study by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy has confirmed that the electron recombination in the solar cells was reduced nearly ten-fold with the addition of 1 wt% carbon nanotubes in the HTM composite. Owing to the superior HTM film morphology and the significantly reduced charge recombination, the energy conversion efficiency of the perovskite solar cells increased from 3.6% for pristine P3HT to 8.3% for P3HT/(1 wt% BCNs) with a significantly enhanced open circuit voltage (V_oc) and fill factor (FF). The findings of this work are important for development of new HTM for high performance perovskite solar cells.