Low temperature synthesis of hierarchical TiO2 nanostructures for high performance perovskite solar cells by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

A promising way to advance perovskite solar cells is to improve the quality of the electron transport material – e.g., titanium dioxide (TiO₂) – in a direction that increases electron transport and extraction. Although dense TiO₂ films are easily grown in solution, efficient electron extraction suffers due to a lack of interfacial contact area with the perovskites. Conversely, mesoporous films do offer high surface-area-to-volume ratios, thereby promoting efficient electron extraction, but their morphology is relatively difficult to control via conventional solution synthesis methods. Here, a pulsed laser deposition method was used to assemble TiO₂ nanoparticles into TiO₂ hierarchical architectures exhibiting an anatase crystal structure, and prototype solar cells employing these structures yielded power conversion efficiencies of ∼14%. Our approach demonstrates a way to grow high aspect-ratio TiO₂ nanostructures for improved interfacial contact between TiO₂ and perovskite materials, leading to high electron–hole pair separation and electron extraction efficiencies for superior photovoltaic performance. Compared to previous pulsed laser deposition-synthesized TiO₂ mesoporous crystalline networks that needed post-thermal annealing at 500 °C to form mesoporous crystalline networks, our relatively low temperature (300 °C) TiO₂ processing method may promote reduced energy-consumption during device fabrication, as well as enable compatibility with flexible polymer substrates such as polyimide.