Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405

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Journal of Power Sources

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jpowsour

Solvothermal derived crystalline NiOx nanoparticles for high

performance perovskite solar cells
Xingtian Yin a, *, Jie Liu a, Jiaqi Ma a, Chongxin Zhang a, Peng Chen a, Meidan Que a,
Yawei Yang a, Wenxiu Que a, **, Chunming Niu b, Jinyou Shao c
a
Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, International Center for Dielectric Research, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education, School of Electronic &
Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China
b
Center of Nanomaterials for Renewable Energy (CNRE), State Key Lab of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, School of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an
Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China
c
State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

 Ultra-small crystalline NiOx nano-

particles were prepared by a hydro-
thermal method.
 NiOx thin films were spin coated
from the NiOx nanoparticle solution.
 Planar perovskite solar cells were
fabricated using NiOx films as hole
contacts.
 The NiOx-based devices output a
reproducible high PCE of 16.68%.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A solvothermal method is employed to synthesize NiOx nanoparticles with good dispersibility. The
Received 8 July 2016 synthesized NiOx nanoparticles are very homogenous with an average size of about 3e5 nm, and the X-
Received in revised form ray diffraction suggests a good crystallinity for the nanoparticles. NiOx films are spin coated from a
12 August 2016
colloid precursor which is prepared by dispersing the NiOx nanoparticles into ethanol using a certain
Accepted 23 August 2016
Available online 31 August 2016
amount of acetic as the stabilizer. To obtain an efficient hole extraction layer, an annealing process at
300  C degree is necessary to remove the residual acetic in the NiOx film. Finally, hysteresis-less NiOx-
based perovskite solar cells with good reproducibility are achieved, and a highest power conversion
Keywords:
Solvothermal
efficiency (PCE) of 16.68% and a constant steady state PCE of 16.49% are also demonstrated.
NiOx © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Hole contact
Perovskite solar cell

1. Introduction

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells have progressed

* Corresponding author. rapidly in the past several years due to their extraordinary prop-
** Corresponding author. erties such as excellent light harvesting, high charge carrier
E-mail addresses: xt_yin@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (X. Yin), wxque@mail.xjtu.edu.cn mobility, long carrier lifetime, and so on [1e3]. Mesoscopic and
(W. Que).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.08.102
0378-7753/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 X. Yin et al. / Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405
planar structures are the most frequently employed structures for
perovskite solar cells, both of which have been proved to be able to
obtain high performance devices [4]. Particularly, the planar
perovskite solar cells which usually consist of a perovskite thin film
sandwiched between an electron and a hole extraction layer are
very similar to organic thin film solar cells. Therefore, many tech-
niques in organic photovoltaics can be transferred to planar
perovskite solar cells easily.
Transition metal oxides (TMOs) have been widely used as
charge extraction materials for many different kinds of solar cells,
especially organic solar cells [5e10]. Specifically, TiO2 and MoO3
are the most successful TMOs in thin film polymer solar cells,
where they work as the electron and hole extraction layers,
respectively [11]. Similarly, the great success of TiO2 has also been
demonstrated in perovskite solar cells [12e14], but NiOx rather
than MoO3 was proved to be the most frequently employed hole
transport TMO for perovskite solar cells. NiO is a p-type wide
band gap semiconductor with a high work function (above 5.1 eV)
and deep valence band (5.4 eV), which enables it to extract holes
and block electrons effectively when coming into contacted with
perovskite absorbers [15,16]. Besides, the stable chemical prop-
erty of NiOx also makes it a good alternative for the PEDOT: PSS
films, which is not favorable for device long-term stability due to
its high acidity and hygroscopicity [17e20]. Many methods have
been reported to deposit NiOx films for perovskite solar cell
application. For example, NiOx hole transport layers can be ach-
ieved by oxidizing evaporated nickel films in O2 atmosphere [21],
and this process can be even employed to prepare Au: NiOx
transparent electrodes for perovskite solar cells [22]. Besides,
sputtering has also been used to deposit NiOx film for perovskite
devices [23,24]. Unfortunately, above vacuum-related physical
methods only output a low PCE of no more than 12%. Although
pulse laser deposition method has been demonstrated to be an
effective way to prepare nanostructured NiOx films, based on
which a PCE of 17.3% has already been achieved for perovskite
solar cells [25], the expensive fabrication process makes it not
suitable for large scale application. Besides, solution phase
chemical methods, such as spin coating, spray pyrolysis, electro-
deposition, doctor blade, spun-cast, screen-printing and com-
bustion have also been employed to deposit NiOx films for
perovskite solar cells, and PCE ranging from 7.26% to 17.46% were
reported by different groups [16,26e31]. Particularly, spin coating
might be the most frequently employed solution phase chemical
method due to its facile process. To deposit NiOx films by spin
coating, two kinds of precursors are usually adopted: nickel-
containing organic sol and crystalline NiOx nanoparticles colloid
[15,32]. Generally speaking, for the former precursor, a high
temperature annealing process usually at 400e550  C is indis-
pensable in most cases [15,20,29,33]. While, for the latter one,
just a low temperature annealing process is enough to prepare
high quality NiOx films [32], making it more attractive to fabricate
NiOx-based perovskite solar cells.
In this article, we reported an efficient hole extraction layer for
perovskite solar cells by spin coating solvothermal derived NiOx
nanoparticles. The as-prepared NiOx nanoparticles are very
small with a size of about 3e7 nm, which enables them very
suitable for depositing uniform NiOx films. The crystalline prop-
erty of the nanoparticles provides them excellent hole transport
ability, resulting in a highest PCE of 16.68% (with a constant steady
state PCE of 16.49%) for the resulted NiOx-based perovskite solar
cells.
399
2. Experimental section
2.1. Materials and chemicals
Nickel acetylacetonate (Ni(acac)2) was purchased from Aladdin.
Lead (Ⅱ) iodide (PbI2) and methylammonium iodide (CH3NH3I)
were obtained from Weihua-Solar. [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid
methyl ester (PCBM) was achieved from American Dye Sources.
Dimethylsulphoxide (DMSO) and N,Ndimethylformamide (DMF)
were purchased from Alfa-Aesar. All the rest chemicals were pur-
chased from Sinopharm Group Chemical Reagent Co. Ltd. China.
Deionized water with a resistivity of 18.3 MU cm was used in all the
preparation. Indium tin oxides (ITO) glass with a sheet resistance of
7e10 U was purchased from LaiBao Hi-tech Co. Ltd. China.
2.2. NiOx nanoparticles preparation
The NiOx nanoparticles were prepared by a solvothermal
method [34]. Typically, 0.325 g nickel acetylacetonate (Ni(acac)2)
was added to 35 ml tert-butanol in a conical flask. To dissolve the
solid chemicals, the flask was put on a heating magnetic stirrer and
stirred at 70  C for 10 h. The resulting turbid green solution was
transferred into a Teflon-linedstainless steel autoclave of 50 ml
capacity, hermetically sealed, and then kept in an oven at 210  C for
24 h. After cooling to room temperature, the resulting NiOx
colloidal solution was centrifuged and the precipitation was
washed by absolute ethanol for two times. Finally, the NiOx nano-
particles were dried at 75  C for 2 h in an oven.
2.3. NiOx films deposition
40 mg as-prepared NiOx powders were added into a small glass
bottle and covered by 30 mL acetic acid. Then 2 mL absolute ethanol
was added and sonicated for 30 min to prepare a NiOx colloidal
dispersion with a concentration of 20 mg/mL. The resulted solution
was filtered through a polytetrafluoroethylene (TPFE) filter
(0.45 mm) to obtain the NiOx colloid precursor. NiOx films were
deposited on ITO substrates by spin coating the NiOx colloid pre-
cursor at 2000 rpm for 30 s, followed by baking at 130  C on a hot
plate for 20 min. Finally, an annealing process was conducted for
the NiOx films at 300  C for 1 h if necessary. All these processes
were conducted in ambient air condition.
2.4. Perovskite solar cells fabrication
To fabricate perovskite solar cell devices, ITO substrates were
etched in HCl by adding some zinc powder, and then cleaned by
sonication in hot Hellmanex solution, deionized water, acetone and
ethanol, successively. After the deposition of NiOx films, perovskite
films were deposited onto the NiOx films by a modified spin coating
method [32,35]. Briefly, 2.3 g of PbI2 (Weihua-Solar) and 0.8 g of
CH3NH3I (Weihua-Solar) were dissolved in 1.5 mL of dime-
thylsulphoxide (DMSO, Alfa-Aesar) and 3.5 mL of N,Ndime-
thylformamide (DMF, Alfa-Aesar), stirred at 70  C with vigorous
stirring for 12 h, and filtered through a TPFE filter (0.45 mm) to
prepare the perovskite precursor. And then the perovskite precur-
sor was spin coated onto the NiOx coated ITO substrate with a low
speed of 1000 rpm for 5 s and a higher speed of 3000 rpm for 30 s,
at the end of which 0.13 mL of chlorobenzene was dripped onto the
film while spinning. The prepared wet films were baked at 100  C
for 10 min to obtain crystalline perovskite films. After cooling to the
400 X. Yin et al. / Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405

room temperature, electron contacts were deposited onto the
perovskite films by spin coating a 20 mg/mL [6,6]-phenyl-C61-
butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM, American Dye Sources) solution
in chlorobenzene at 1500 rpm for 30 s. Both the deposition of
perovskite films and PCBM films were conducted in a glove box.
Finally, the samples were transferred into an evaporator, and about
150 nm Ag film was thermally evaporated onto the PCBM films
through a shadow mask which defined the active area for each
device as 0.07 cm2.
region can be clearly seen, which can be ascribed to the d-d tran-
sitions of Ni(Ⅲ) [34]. While the steep absorption in the UV region
below 350 nm is attributed to the band gap absorption of NiO. The
optical band gap of the nanoparticles is determined to be 3.81 eV
from the Tauc plot.
The NiOx nanoparticle powders were re-dispersed in absolute
ethanol to prepare NiOx nanoparticle dispersion colloid, in which

2.5. Characterization

A transmission electron microscopy (TEM, JEM-2010, JEOL Inc.,

Japan) and a X-ray diffractometer (XRD, SMARTLAB, Rigaku, Japan)
were employed to characterize the microstructural and crystalline
properties of the prepared nanoparticles, respectively. The
morphological properties of the films were observed by a scanning
electron microscopy (SEM, JSM-6390, JEOL Inc., Japan) and an
atomic force microscopy (AFM, Cypher S, Asylum Research).
Element composition of the NiOx film was characterized by using X-
ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS, AXIS Ultrabld, Kratos). The
UVeVis transmission spectra of films were characterized by using a
JASCO V-570 UV/VIS/NIR Spectrometer. A PVIV-201V I-V Station
(Newport Oriel) was employed to measure the J-V curves of the as-
fabricated devices, before which the illumination source was cali-
brated by using a Newport 91150 V reference cell system. The J-V
curves were scanned at a rate of 0.1 V/s either from Jsc to Voc or the
opposite. The steady state power conversion efficiency was ob-
tained by measuring device current density while biasing the de-
vices at their maximum power point. A Qtest Station 1000ADX
system (Growntech. Inc) was employed to measure the external
quantum efficiency (EQE) spectra of the devices.

3. Results and discussions

Fig. 1a shows a low magnification TEM image of the as-

prepared NiOx nanoparticles. It can be clearly seen that ultra-
small nanoparticles with a size of 3e7 nm disperse well in the
whole field. The inset of Fig. 1a presents the electron diffraction
pattern of the nanoparticles, where several diffraction circles can
be observed, indicating a multicrystalline structure of the nano-
particles. The high-resolution TEM (HRTEM) image of several
nanoparticles aggregation is shown in Fig. 1b, in which the size for
a single nanoparticle can be distinguished to be 3e5 nm. The clear
lattice fringes suggest a good crystalline property for each nano-
particle, and the spacing between two adjacent lattice fringes is
measured to be 0.209 nm, which can be ascribed to the (200) plane
of NiO crystal (JCPDS Card: 47-1049). The formation of crystalline
NiOx nanoparticles can be further demonstrated by the XRD
pattern of the resulted NiOx nanoparticle powders shown in Fig. 1c,
where the XRD pattern for commercial NiO powders is also pre-
sented for comparison. Three narrow and intense peaks appear at
37.22 , 43.24 and 62.84 for the commercial NiO powders, cor-
responding to the (111), (200) and (220) plane of NiO crystals. For
the as-prepared NiOx nanoparticle powders, three peaks appear at
the same location, but the much broader peaks suggest their small
crystal size. The crystallite size is determined to be 5e6 nm by
using Debye-Scherrer formula, which is consistent with that
measured from TEM images roughly, indicating a monocrystalline
property of each single NiOx nanoparticle [36]. Fig. 1d presents the Fig. 1. (a) TEM image of as-prepared NiOx nanoparticles. The inset shows the electron
diffraction patterns for the nanoparticles. (b) HRTEM image of several NiOx nano-
absorption spectrum and corresponding Tauc plot of the NiOx
particles. (c) XRD diffraction patterns for as-prepared NiOx nanoparticles and com-
nanoparticles. A distinct absorption peak around 376 nm in the UV mercial NiO powders. (d) Absorption spectrum and corresponding Tauc plot of the
NiOx nanoparticles.
 X. Yin et al. / Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405
a certain amount of acetic was added as stabilizer. It should be
mentioned here that the addition of acetic is very important to
achieve stable NiOx colloid, otherwise the NiOx powders can not
be even dispersed in ethanol. The NiOx nanoparticle dispersion
colloid was spin coated on ITO substrate to prepare NiOx films.
Fig. 2a shows the top-view SEM image of a NiOx film on an ITO
substrate. It is clear that the NiOx film is composed of small NiOx
nanoparticles, which cover the ITO surface homogenously with
no obvious voids. The condense characteristic of NiOx films can
be proved by the cross-sectional SEM image shown in Fig. 2b,
where a compact film with an average thickness of about 65 nm
can be seen clearly. Fig. 2c presents the top-view SEM image of a
NiOx film after being annealed at 300  C for 1 h, which is very
similar to that shown in Fig. 2b. However, 3d AFM images shown
in Fig. 2d reveal a rougher surface for the annealed sample. As
shown in Fig. 2d, ITO substrate is very flat with a root mean
square (RMS) roughness as low as 1.082 nm, and this value in-
creases to 8.041 nm after the deposition of NiOx film. The
annealing process further increases the RMS roughness to
8.798 nm due to the coalescence of NiOx nanoparticles at high
temperature.
The annealing process not only changed the morphology of NiOx
films, but also modified their elemental composition. To illustrate
this issue, we further compare the XPS spectra of NiOx films before
and after annealing at 300  C, and the results are presented in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3a shows the Ni 2p core level of the film before annealing which
can be satisfactorily fitted by several peaks on top of a Shirley
background. The peak at around 861.0 eV is attributed to the
Fig. 2. (a) Top-view and (b) cross-sectional SEM image of NiOx film spin coated from the NiOx nanoparticle colloid. (c) Top-view SEM image of NiOx film after annealing at 300  C for
1 h. (d) 3d-AFM images for ITO substrate and NiOx films before and after annealing at 300  C for 1 h. The size for each image is 2 mm  2 mm.
401
shakeup process of NiO lattice. While, the three peaks at 853.7 eV,
855.1 eV and 856.4 eV can be assigned to NiO, Ni2O3 and NiOOH 19,
and their content ratio is calculated as 41.2%, 39.2% and 19.6%,
respectively. After annealing at 300  C for 1 h, the XPS of Ni 2p
remains almost unchanged, indicating similar Ni components with
the unannealed sample. However, an obvious change is observed
for the O1s core level after the annealing. As shown in Fig. 3c,
except for the three peaks related to nickel compounds, an addi-
tional peak for C]O bonds can also be observed at 531.4 eV for the
unannealed film. Considering that some acetic was employed as the
stabilizer for the NiOx colloid, it is reasonable to believe that some
residual acetic would be left after the short baking process at
130  C. After annealing at 300  C for 1 h, the XPS intensity for C]O
bonds was severely weakened, suggesting most of the residual
acetic was removed from the NiOx film.
UVeVis spectra of ITO substrates with and without NiOx film are
presented in Fig. 4a. Compared with the ITO substrate, the trans-
mission decreases a little bit but still maintains around 80% in the
visible region after depositing the NiOx film. Therefore, the as-
prepared NiOx films were employed as the hole extraction layer
to prepare p-i-n type planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells.
The perovskite film was deposited onto the NiOx film by a modified
1-step spin coating method, and the top-view SEM image for a
typical perovskite film is shown in Fig. 4b, where a homogenous
film without pinholes can be clearly seen. Fig. 4c presents the XRD
pattern of the prepared perovskite film, and the diffraction peaks
suggest a pure perovskite structure for the film. Fig. 4d shows the
UVeVis absorption spectrum of the prepared perovskite film, in
402 X. Yin et al. / Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405

Fig. 3. XPS spectra of NiOx films. Ni 2p core level for NiOx films (a) before and (b) after annealing at 300  C for 1 h. O 1s core level for NiOx films (c) before and (d) after annealing at
300  C for 1 h.

Fig. 4. (a) Transmission spectra of ITO substrates with and without NiOx film. (b) Top-view SEM image, (c) XRD pattern and (d) UVeVis absorption spectrum of the perovskite film
on NiOx coated ITO substrate.
 X. Yin et al. / Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405 403

Fig. 5. (a) Device structure diagram and false color cross-sectional SEM image of a perovskite solar cell based on NiOx hole extraction layer. (b) J-V curves for perovskite solar cells
based on NiOx films with and without annealing. (c) Steady state PCE measurement for the NiOx-based device. (d) EQE spectra and integral current density from EQE spectra for the
NiOx-based device.

which an absorption edge around 785 nm can be clearly observed of the device performance is listed in Table 1. Above results suggest
for the film. the residual acetic is fatal to the device performance, and the
The structure diagram and the false color cross-sectional SEM annealing process is essential to achieve efficient devices in our
image of a typical device are shown in Fig. 5a, from which the experiment. In order to measure the steady state PCE, we biased the
thickness of perovskite film is measured to be 360 nm. The electron device at the voltage of its maximum power point and recorded the
extraction layer and cathode electrode is a 80 nm PCBM film and a current density under AM 1.5 simulated light. Fig. 5c presents the
160 nm Ag film, respectively. Fig. 5b shows the J-V curves of devices current density (Jmax) measured at a voltage (Vmax) of 0.9 V as well
based on NiOx hole contact with and without annealing, where as the PCE calculated by multiplying Vmax and Jmax. Clearly the
both the forward scan (from Jsc to Voc) and reverse scan (from Voc to current density keeps almost constant at 18.34 mA/cm2 even 4 min
Jsc) are presented. For the device with unannealed NiOx film, both later, leading to a constant steady state PCE of 16.49% which is
the forward scan and reverse scan output very low power conver- consistent with the PCE obtained from J-V curve. The EQE spectrum
sion efficiency due to the ultra-small fill factor (FF, <0.3) and short of our best device is shown in Fig. 5d, and the device exhibits a
circuit current density (Jsc, <5 mA/cm2). However, the FF and Jsc relative high quantum efficiency in the whole visible region. The
increase dramatically to 0.769 and 19.9 mA/cm2 (reverse scanning) short circuit current density can also be calculated by integrating
for the annealed sample, respectively. Meanwhile, the Voc also in- the overlap of EQE and the AM1.5G solar photon flux, and it turns
creases from 1.02 V to 1.09 V, resulting in a promotion of PCE from out to be 20.01 mA/cm2 for our device which agrees well with that
below 1% to 16.68%. Besides, the device shows a very weak hys- obtained from J-V curve.
teresis phenomenon, with a Voc of 1.09 V, Jsc of 20.2 mA/cm2, FF of In ordered to investigate the reproducibility of our NiOx-based
0.739 and PCE of 16.27% for the forward scanning. A detail summary perovskite solar cells, we fabricated 49 devices and the detail dis-
tributions of the device parameters are presented in Fig. 6. It can be
seen from Fig. 6a that all the devices have a Voc above 1.04 V, and
Table 1 more than 75% devices fall in the range of 1.06e1.10 V, indicating a
Summary for the photovoltaic parameters of J-V curves scanned with different narrow distribution of Voc. The Jsc distribution in Fig. 6b suggests
directions.
that most devices have a Jsc in the range of 17.35e20.53 mA/cm2 in
Treatment Scan direction Voc (V) FF Jsc (mA/cm2) PCE(%) our experiment. Although the FF distributes in a relative wide range
J-V Steady state from 65% to 80%, as shown in Fig. 6c, most devices (79%) show a FF
between 71% and 77%. Therefore, we obtained PCE ranging from
no annealing Jsc / Voc 1.02 0.153 4.29 0.67 e
Voc / Jsc 1.02 0.243 3.55 0.88 13.56% to 16.68% for 49 devices with an average value of 15.05%,
300  C Jsc / Voc 1.09 0.739 20.2 16.27 16.49 which suggests that our NiOx-based perovskite solar cells have a
Voc / Jsc 1.09 0.769 19.9 16.68 good reproducibility.
404 X. Yin et al. / Journal of Power Sources 329 (2016) 398e405
Fig. 6. Performance distribution for 49 NiOx-based perovskite devices. (a) Voc (b) Jsc (c) FF (d) PCE.
4. Conclusions
In conclusion, ultra-small crystalline NiOx nanoparticles were
prepared by a solvothermal method. The as-prepared NiOx nano-
particles are very homogenous with an average size of 3e5 nm, and
their crystalline property makes them very suitable to deposit high
quality NiOx hole transport films. A low temperature annealing
process was employed to remove the residual organic components
in our experiment, which is very important to achieve efficient
NiOx hole extraction layers. Finally, a hysteresis-less NiOx-based
planar perovskite solar cells were demonstrated with a highest PCE
of 16.68%. The reproducibility investigation suggests a narrow
performance distribution among 49 devices.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China under Grant No. 51502239, China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation under grant 2015M582659, the Science and
Technology Developing Project of Shaanxi Province under Grant
No. 2015KW-001, and partially by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China Major Research Plan on Nanomanufacturing
under Grant No. 91323303. The SEM work was done at Interna-
tional Center for Dielectric Research, Xi'an Jiaotong University,
Xi'an, P. R. China.
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