Manipulate energy transport via fluorinated spacers towards record-efficiency 2D Dion-Jacobson CsPbI3 solar cells

• Published in: Science bulletin (Beijing) Vol. 67; no. 13; pp. 1352 - 1361
• Main Authors: Lei, Yutian, Li, Zhen-Hua, Wang, Haoxu, Wang, Qian, Peng, Guoqiang, Xu, Youkui, Zhang, Haihua, Wang, Gang, Ding, Liming, Jin, Zhiwen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 15-07-2022
• Subjects: Dion-Jacobson CsPbI3; Energy transport; Fluorinated spacers; Interaction; Fluorinated spacers; Energy transport; Interaction; Dion-Jacobson CsPbI3
• ISSN: 2095-9273
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2022.05.019

Here, we tune the coupling between organic cations and inorganic planes by rationally functionalizing spacers, thereby improving the energy transfer barrier induced by organic insulating layers. Moreover, ion migration and defect formation are suppressed via the manipulation of the 2D CsPbI3 crystallization. Therefore, we obtained a record PCE of 15.12% for (2F-PDA)Cs3Pb4I13 device with negligible hysteresis, and strengthened stability.
[Display omitted]
Two-dimensional (2D) Dion-Jacobson (D-J)-type cesium lead iodide CsPbI3 perform remarkably in terms of stability. However, the complex interactions between spacer and inorganic layers limit its excellent progress in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, starting from the considerable structural diversity of organic spacers, we engineer 2D CsPbI3 with fine-tuning functionalities. Specifically, for the first time we embedded fluorinated aromatic cations in 2D D-J CsPbI3, and successfully applied it onto construction of high-performance PSCs. Compared with constitutive 1,4-diaminobenzene (PDA), the fluorinated 2-fluorobenzene-1,4-diamine (F-PDA) component greatly expands the dipole moment from 0.59D to 3.47D, which reduces the exciton binding energy of the system. A theoretical study shows that the spacer layer and inorganic plane are more enriched with charge accumulation in (F-PDA)Csn–1PbnI3n+1. The results show that (F-PDA)Csn–1PbnI3n+1 demonstrates more significant charge transfer between organic and inorganic layers than (PDA)Csn–1PbnI3n+1, and it is confirmed in the femtosecond transient absorption experiment. Moreover, the interactions of the fluorinated spacer with the [PbI6]4– plane effectively manipulate the crystallization quality, thus the ion migration and defect formation of target 2D CsPbI3 are inhibited. As a result, we obtained a record power conversion efficiency (PCE) beyond 15% for 2D D-J (F-PDA)Cs3Pb4I13 (n = 4) PSCs with significantly improved environmental stability compared with the three-dimensional (3D) counterparts.