Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16

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Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Enhanced efficiency and stability of fully air-processed TiO2 nanorods array T

based perovskite solar cell using commercial available CuSCN and carbon
⁎
Yanqi Lv, Yi Guo, Heng Zhang, Xingfu Zhou , Hongling Chen
State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 210009, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this study, commercial available inorganic p-semiconductor CuSCN and carbon was employed in replacing the
TiO2 nanorod arrays expensive hole transport materials and noble metal electrode of the traditional perovskite solar cell, respectively.
Perovskite solar cell TiO2 compact layer and the mesoporous layer were also replaced by TiO2 nanorod arrays. The fully-air processed
CuSCN perovskite solar cells were easy to fabricate and demonstrated an enhanced efficiency and stability. The in-
Carbon
troduction of CuSCN improves the current density and the fill factor of the solar cell, thus leads to 29% increase
in conversion efficiency. Intensity modulated photovoltage (IMVS) shows that the solar cell with CuSCN has a
longer electron life time. Current attenuation curve shows that the current of the solar cell with CuSCN rises
quicker and higher than that of the solar cell without CuSCN. The steady-state photoluminescence tests shows
that the introduction of CuSCN layer enhances the separation of electrons and holes, thus reducing the re-
combination of electrons and holes. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) reveals that the solar cell
with CuSCN has low transport resistance and high recombination resistance, thus leading to the slower electron
recombination rates. In addition, study shows that the use of CuSCN and carbon displays high stability, and both
kind of cells keep over 80% of the initial efficiency after 30 days without encapsulation. This method simplifies
the perovskite solar cell fabrication process and opens a door toward the cheap, stable and printable solar cell.

1. Introduction
Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have at-
tracted a great concern due to their unique advantages, such as ex-
cellent light capture efficiency, high charge mobility and long electron-
hole transmission distance (Stranks et al., 2013; Cheng and Lin, 2010;
Xing et al., 2013). And the power conversion efficiency (PCE) has
reached up 23.2% (Jeon et al., 2018). Furthermore, the structures and
materials of the perovskite solar cells have become more and more
novel and various. Conventional perovskite solar cell has a sandwich
structure which composed of electron transfer layer (ETL), perovskite
layer and hole transport layer (HTL). The ETLs often use mesoporous
and compact metallic oxide like TiO2 (Edri et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2013;
Choi et al., 2014), ZnO (Son et al., 2015; Cheng et al., 2015), and SnO2
(Zhou et al., 2016; Li et al., 2015). Most of the HTLs are organics, like
Spiro-OMeTAD, PTAA, and P3HT (Bi et al., 2016; Zheng et al. 2017). In
those multitudinous perovskite solar cells, the cell based on the struc-
ture of FTO/bl-TiO2/mp-TiO2/Perovskite/Spiro-OMeTAD/Metal has
been widely used.
It is known that the mesoscopic TiO2 based PSCs are widely studied
due to their high PCE. However, there are still some shortcomings, such
as surface defects, trap states and numerous grain boundaries, thus
leading to charge recombination. Recently, one-dimensional (1D) TiO2
nanorod arrays are used as electron transport layer owing to their direct
pathway for more efficient transport and enhanced light harvesting by
light scattering. Li et al. used a new solvothermal method based on a
modified ketone–HCl system with the addition of organic acids suitable
for adjustment of TiO2 nanorods yielding PCE of 18.22% (Li et al.,
2016). Very recently, Liu et al. achieved a high PCE of 19% via further
investigating the properties of the TiO2 nanorod arrays (Liu et al.,
2017a). Spiro-OMeTAD is a kind of organic p-type semiconductor, and
it has been used in solid state dye-sensitized solar cell (Abate et al.,
2013). Perovskite solar cell with Spiro-OMeTAD as HTL has been
achieved high efficiency. Zhou et al. used Y+ doped TiO2 as ETL to
reduce the electron transmission resistance, and the device with Spiro-
OMeTAD got an efficiency exceeding 19% (Zhou et al., 2014). How-
ever, the purification of Spiro-OMeTAD is difficult, and electrical con-
ductivity of itself is not strong. Some additives like Li-TFSI and 4-tert-
butylpyridine are usually used to improve its performance. Abate et al
found that the doped of Li-TFSI 5–10 folds increase the hole mobility
and was used to rationalize the observed 100 folds increase in con-
ductivity (Abate et al., 2013). On the one hand, those materials are very

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Zhouxf@njtech.edu.cn (X. Zhou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2018.07.057
Received 10 May 2018; Received in revised form 15 July 2018; Accepted 21 July 2018
0038-092X/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Y. Lv et al. Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16

Fig. 1. Cross-section SEM image of TiO2 nanorods (a), top-view SEM images of TiO2 nanorods (b) and perovskite layers (c and d).

Fig. 2. Cross-sectional SEM images of solar cells with CuSCN (b) and without CuSCN (a).

expensive, and therefore increase the cost of perovskite solar cells. On
the other hand, the lithium salt is hydrophilic, it can combine the
moisture in air and then accelerate the decompose of perovskite. This is
bad for the stability of device. Recently, Yang et al used Poly (triar-
lyamine) PTAA as hole transport layer, and obtained PCE of 22.1%
(Yang et al., 2017). Other types of organic hole-transport materials like
poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and PEDOT:PSS are also used in per-
ovskite solar cells and reached high efficiencies (Jeon et al., 2015;
Chiang et al., 2014; Xiao et al., 2014). But those materials also exists
problem in cost and intrinsic instability. In comparison, inorganic hole-
transport materials are more cheaper and stable such as CuSCN (Ye
et al., 2015; Zhao et al., 2015), CuI (Christians et al., 2014) and NiO
(You et al., 2016). Arora et al have obtained PCE exceeding 20% via
using CuSCN as hole transport layer (Arora et al., 2017). In general, Ag
and Au are used as counter electrode. However, the preparation con-
ditions of those electrodes are so strict, and the craft become complex
inevitably. Moreover, Ag and Au react with perovskite and destruct the
light absorption layer. As a kind of low-cost, pollution free and facile
conductive material, carbon is an ideal substitute for noble metal, and
has been used in perovskite solar cells (Habisreutinger et al., 2014;
Wang et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2014; Shirazi et al., 2017).
In this work, TiO2 nanorod arrays, CH3NH3PbI3-xClx and commer-
cial available carbon paste were used as ETL, absorption layer and
counter electrode respectively. Inorganic p-semiconductor CuSCN was
used to enhance the performance of device. To our best knowledge,
Commercial available CuSCN and carbon was used instead of both the

8
Y. Lv et al.
Fig. 3. (a) XRD patterns of TiO2 nanorod arrays sensitized with perovskite, (b) XRD patterns of CuSCN film deposited on FTO glasses, (c) top-view SEM image of
CuSCN film deposited on the perovskite film, (d) X-ray photoelectron spectra of CuSCN film.
expensive hole transport materials and noble metal electrode, and TiO2
nanorods arrays were used instead of TiO2 compact layer and the me-
soporous layer simultaneously, has not been reported to date. XRD re-
sults shows that the perovskite has good crystallinity after annealing. J-
V test reveals that the use of CuSCN could increase the short current and
then improve the efficiency. The best PCE reached to 10.01% with
using CuSCN as HTL and carbon instead of noble metal such as Ag and
Au. The result shows that the cells have good stability when commercial
available carbon and CuSCN was used as electrode.
2. Experimental section
2.1. Preparation of perovskite precursor
All chemicals were analytical reagent and used without any further
purification, the CH3NH3I was synthesized following the reported lit-
erature (Lee et al., 2012). Briefly, 24 mL of CH3NH2 (40% in water,
Aladdin) and 10 mL HI (56% in water, Aladdin) were stirred in a round-
bottom flask contained 50 mL ethanol at 0 °C for 2 h. Then the solution
was rotary evaporated at 50 °C for 1 h to get CH3NH3I, after that the
precipitate was washed with diethyl ether for three times and re-
crystallized with diethyl ether and ethanol. Finally, the product was
vacuum drying at 60 °C for 24 h. The 40% perovskite precursor solution
was prepared by dissolving 0.42 g CH3NH3I and 0.25 g PbCl2 in 1 g N,N-
dimethylformamide (DMF).
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Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16
2.2. Synthesis of TiO2 nanorods
TiO2 NRs growth on FTO substrate was prepared by hydrothermal
method. Specifically, 20 mL HCl (37%) was mixed with 20 mL deio-
nized water in a beaker and stirred for 5 min, then 0.75 mL titanium
isopropylate (TTIP) was added in drops slowly. After stirred for another
10 min, the aqueous solution was transferred into a 70 mL Teflon-lined
stainless steel autoclave which contained five FTO substrates and he-
ated to 423 K for 2 h in an electric dry oven. After the autoclave was
cooled down to room temperature naturally, the substrates were taken
out and rinsed with deionized water and ethanol for three times and
annealed at 500 °C for 30 min after drying at 70 °C.
2.3. Preparation of CuSCN solution
0.03 g commercial available CuSCN powder was dissolved in 2 mL
propyl sulfide with stirred for 4 h at room temperature to get a trans-
parent solution. The CuSCN solution was spin-coated onto the per-
ovskite layer at 3500 rpm for 30 s. Then it was annealed at 80 °C for
10 min.
2.4. Solar cell fabrication
The perovskite films were obtained by spin-coated perovskite pre-
cursor on TiO2 NRs at 1000 rpm for 6 s and then 2000 rpm for 50 s, after
Y. Lv et al. Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16

Fig. 4. N1s (a), S2p (b), C1s(c) and Cu2p (d) XPS spectra of CuSCN film.

Fig. 5. Structural schematic diagram of solar cell (a) and energy band diagram (b).

10
Y. Lv et al.
Fig. 6. (a) J-V curves of the carbon-based PSCs with and without CuSCN hole transport layer under 1 sun illuminations. (b) J-V curves (forward scan and backward
scan). Scan rate: 100 mV·s−1. (c) External quantum efficiency (EQE) results of the solar cell with CuSCN, (d) Current attenuation curve of PSC devices with and
without CuSCN.
drying at 100 °C for 45 min, the perovskite sensitized substrate was
coated with carbon paste by doctor blade, then the prepared carbon
electrode was dried in the air at room temperature for 30 min. Finally,
the cell was heat at 100 °C for 5 min.
2.5. Characterization
The phase of TiO2 nanorods were measured by X-ray diffraction
(XRD, Bruker-D8 Advance). The morphology of TiO2 nanorods and
solar cells were investigated by field emission scanning electron mi-
croscopy (FESEM, Hitachi S-4800 with an acceleration voltage of
30 kV). Photocurrent and voltage were measured by a Newport Oriel
solar simulator and Keithley 2420 source meter (USA) under air mass
(AM) 1.5 G simulated solar light with an illumination intensity of
100 mW/cm2, the solar simulator was calibrated using a standard si-
licon solar cell before measurement. The active area of solar cell was
limited to 0.09 cm2 with a black mask. The electrochemical impedance
spectroscopy (EIS) of the solar cell was recorded using an electro-
chemical work station (CHI660C, CH Instruments). The static current
test was recorded by electrochemical work station with a 530 nm
monochromatic light source (Zahner, Germany, GGR02). The steady-
state photoluminescence (PL) was measured using a FLS 980 E fluo-
rometer (Edinburgh Photonics), with an excitation source of 500 nm
diode laser.
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Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 1 shows the SEM images of TiO2 nanorod arrays growing on
FTO substrate by hydrothermal route at 150 °C for 135 min. As shown
in Fig. 1a, we can find that the thickness of TiO2 nanorod arrays is
nearly 790 nm. Fig. 1b shows the top-view SEM image of TiO2 nanorod
arrays. It is obviously that the shape of nanorod is quadrangle, and the
diameter is 150 nm. The gap between TiO2 nanorods are good for the
permeation of perovskite. Fig. 1c shows the SEM image of the per-
ovskite films. It is obvious that the perovskite film has high crystal-
linity. However, Fig. 1d show the presence of some small pinholes due
to the degradation of perovskite deduced by the water in the ambient
air, which may affect the device performance.
SEM cross-sectional images of the solar cell prepared with and
without CuSCN layer are shown in Fig. 2. To conveniently describe the
images, we define the solar cells with CuSCN as device A, and without
CuSCN as device B, respectively. The device A used in this study were
prepared from a stack of FTO/TiO2/perovskite/C. In Fig. 2a, device A
was composed of 800 nm TiO2 NAs/perovskite capping layer and 13 μm
carbon electrode. In Fig. 2b, a thick and dense CuSCN layer of 300 nm
was successfully deposited onto the perovskite film via a spin-coating
method (Jung et al., 2015). It is obviously that perovskite permeated
into TiO2 nanorod arrays. There are no obviously perovskite layer be-
tween TiO2 and electrode due to one step spin-coating method (Kong
et al., 2014). On the other hand, we can see that carbon layer also
Y. Lv et al. Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16

Fig. 7. IMVS (a and b) and IMPS (c and d) test of the solar cells with or without CuSCN.

Table 1 contact well with the underlayer, which is good for the electron
Results of electron transmission time and electron lifetime. transmission.
IMPS IMVS
Fig. 3a is the XRD patterns of TiO2 nanorod arrays sensitized with
perovskite. The diffraction peak of FTO was marked with asterisk (*).
With Without With Without And the diffraction peak of TiO2 was marked with black dot (•). The
CuSCN CuSCN CuSCN CuSCN diffraction peak shown at 27.45°, 36.09°, 54.32°, 62.74°, 65.48° and
69.01° is attributed to the crystal face of (1 1 0), (1 0 1), (2 1 1), (0 0 2),
fmin (Hz) 16,230 12,930 fmin (Hz) 216.2 271.4
τd (ms) 0.0098 0.0123 τn (ms) 0.736 0.586 (2 2 1) and (3 0 1) of rutile TiO2 (JCPD21-1276). The diffraction peak of
perovskite was marked with rhombus (♦). The diffraction peak shown
at 14.04°, 28.34° and 31.78° ascribe to the crystal face of (1 1 0), (2 2 0)
and (3 1 0) of perovskite. The narrow half peak width of crystal face
means good crystallinity of perovskite. In a addition, there was no PbI2
peak in XRD patterns, which means perovskite did not degrade after
thermal annealing. Fig. 3c shows the SEM image of CuSCN film de-
posited onto the perovskite film. It is obvious that the film is fully and
uniformly covered with CuSCN nanoparticles. In order to identify the
crystal structure of the CuSCN films, the XRD patterns of CuSCN films
were measured and shown in Fig. 3b. The observed three diffraction
peaks of CuSCN film can be assigned to the (0 0 3), (1 0 1) and (0 0 6)
planes of β-CuSCN (Luo et al., 2018), which is more readily available
and stable than α-CuSCN (Prakash et al., 2011; Pattanasattayavong
et al., 2017). A comprehensive XPS test has been performed on the
samples of CuSCN film deposited onto the perovskite film. The XPS
spectra shown in Fig. 3d indicate the presence of the expected elements:
copper, sulfur, carbon and nitrogen.
Fig. 4 displays the XPS spectra of the CuSCN films. The N 1s peak
(Fig. 3a) has a binding energy at 399 eV, corresponding to C^N bonds.
Fig. 8. PL spectra of the perovskite layers with and without CuSCN, excitation The S 2p peak located at 163.79 eV was ascribed to a sulfur atom in a
at 500 nm. eSeC form (Chai et al., 2013). The peaks at 932.4 eV (Cu 2p3/2) and
952.9 eV (Cu 2p1/2) reveal that the oxidation state of Cu in the pro-
ducts is +1 rather than +2 (Li et al., 2007). C1s spectral region of a

12
Y. Lv et al.
Fig. 9. Transport and recombination parameters vs voltage as a function of bias: (a) EIS spectra for solar cell of CuSCN based PSCs and without CuSCN based PSCs
under 1 sun illumination. The insert image is the equivalent circuit employed to fit the spectra. (b) Series resistance, Rs, (c) charge transfer resistance, Rct, (d)
recombination resistance, Rrec.
CuSCN film deposited onto perovskite film can be deconvoluted into
three peaks. The peaks located at 284.8 and 285.3 eV are ascribed to
adventitious carbon and C^N bonds, respectively. Moreover, the peak
at 286.5 eV corresponds probably to the adventitious carbon in its
oxidized CeOH form (Aldakov et al., 2014).
Fig. 5a is the schematic diagram of the solar cell. CuSCN is a kind of
p-semiconductor with high hole mobility (Pattanasattayavong et al.,
2013). It could dissociate the hole from the interface of perovskite and
reduce the recombination of the electron and hole. Fig. 5b shows the
energy band diagram of the solar cell. We can find that CuSCN is a
potential alternative material for the low-cost and efficient hole ex-
traction in perovskite solar cells owing to the close alignment with the
perovskite valence band.
Fig. 6a shows the J-V test of solar cells with and without CuSCN as
hole transport materials. The solar cell with CuSCN achieved a PCE of
10.01% with a Voc of 0.83 V, a Jsc of 21.15 mA/cm2, and a FF of 0.57.
For the solar cell without CuSCN, a PCE of 7.73% with a Voc of 0.79 V, a
Jsc of 19.58 mA/cm2, and a FF of 0.50 was achieved. The result shows
the Voc of the cell get a little increase using CuSCN hole transport
materials, but Jsc and FF gained an obvious improvement, thus finally
improved the efficiency. However, the fill factor (FF) is still not very
high. The low fill factor may be ascribed to TiO2 NAs thicker layer, the
bad contact between TiO2 NAs and perovskite and carbon electrode, the
bad contact between carbon electrode and CuSCN layer. A thick per-
ovskite absorber layer will result in a reduction in the fill factor (FF)
due to the enhanced resistance (Liu and Kelly, 2014). The bad contact
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Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16
between carbon electrode and perovskite or CuSCN layer will result in
the recombination of electrons and holes, thus leading to the low fill
factor (Liu et al., 2017a, b). To further investigate the photocurrent
hysteresis effect of the solar cell with CuSCN. The J–V results (forward:
9.29%, reverse: 10.01%) of the solar cell are shown in Fig. 6b. As lit-
erature reported before (Wei et al., 2015), to describe the difference
between the efficiency of the forward scan and the backward scan, we
define a difference factor according to the following equation:
Difference factor = (ηreverse −ηforward )/ηreverse
The difference factor of the best performed PSC device with CuSCN
is 0.072, indicating the little hysteresis effect of the best device.
Fig. 6c shows the IPCE spectra of the solar cells with and without
CuSCN. We calculated the integrated Jsc values from IPCE data, and
obtained the results of 20.71 mA·cm−2 and 18.98 mA·cm−2 for the solar
cells with and without CuSCN, respectively. The IPCE in the entire
wavelength range and the calculated Jsc of the PSC devices with CuSCN
are larger than these without CuSCN, which is consistent with the J–V
measurements. Fig. 6d shows the current attenuation curve of solar
cells with or without CuSCN. When turn off the light, the current
damping immediately. However, the current density of the solar cell
without CuSCN reduces to nearly zero while the solar cell with CuSCN
remained a certain value of 0.5 mA/cm2. Furthermore, under 1 illu-
mination at 530 nm, the current density of the solar cell with CuSCN
rises quicker and higher than the solar cell without CuSCN. This may be
benefited from the efficient separation of electron and hole by
Y. Lv et al.
Fig. 10. Statistical data of 10 devices fabricated with and without CuSCN: (a) short-circuit photocurrent density (Jsc), (b) open-circuit photovoltage (Voc); (c) fill
factor (FF), and (d) power conversion efficiency (PCE) under 1 sun illumination.
introducing CuSCN between the perovskite and carbon layer.
Intensity modulated photovoltage spectroscopy (IMVS) and in-
tensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) are frequency-
domain technique. These methods often used to measure the electron
transfer time (τd) and electron life time (τn) in dye-sensitized solar cells
(Bisquert et al., 2009; Bisquert and Vikhrenko, 2004; Schlichthorl et al.,
1999). Here, we used this technique to test perovskite solar cells. The
light intensity is 100 W/m2 and the amplitude is 40 mV. Fig. 7a and b is
the IMVS test of solar cells. Fig. 7c and d is the IMPS test. For electron
transfer time (τd), it can calculate by the equation:
1 1
τd = =
ωmin 2πfmin
Here, fmin is the frequency corresponding to the nadir of imaginary
of IMPS. The electron life time (τn) could be calculated by the same
method from IMVS. The results are shown in Table 1. It is obviously
that both kinds of cells have similar electron transfer time (τd). This can
be explained that the length of nanorods arrays are approximately the
same, so the time of the electron transporting from TiO2 to FTO are
roughly the same. For the electron life time, the solar cell with CuSCN is
higher than the solar cell without CuSCN. It benefited from the efficient
dissociation of hole from the perovskite layer by CuSCN, and reduces
the recombination of electron and hole.
Fig. 8 shows the PL emission of the perovskite layers with and
without CuSCN. The PL emission peak is centered at 773 nm corre-
sponding to the literatures reported (De Wolf et al., 2014). It is obvious
that a sharp quenching happened after spinning coated with CuSCN
layer onto the top of the perovskite layer. This indicates that the in-
troduction of CuSCN layer contributes to the efficient hole transport to
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Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16
the CuSCN, thus improving the photocurrent density.
To further investigate the internal electron transport properties of
the devices, we performed the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy
at the applied bias from 0 to 1.0 V under AM 1.5 G one sun light illu-
mination (Fig. 9). To easily describe the images, we define the solar
cells with CuSCN as device A, and without CuSCN as device B, re-
spectively. Fig. 9a shows the Nyquist plots in the frequency range from
1 MHz to 10 MHz for devices A and B under one sun illumination at a
bias of 0.8 V. The insert of Fig. 9a is the equivalent circuit model. As
shown in Fig. 9a, the impedance spectrum was consisted of two semi-
circles, the small semicircle at a high frequency relates to the contact
interface of TiO2/perovskite layer and perovskite/HTM layer, which
attributed to the the charge transport resistance (Rct) (Liu et al., 2017a,
b). The larger semicircle of the curve on the right side is generally
considered as the resistance associated with the recombination of
electrons, and the size of this curve is proportional to the electron re-
combination resistance Rrec (Wang et al., 2015; Song et al., 2017). Rs is
the series resistance, including the sheet resistance of the FTO glass and
the contact resistance of the cell. As shown in Fig. 9b, Rs of device B is a
little bigger than device A. this indicates that device A (∼0.50) has
smaller fill factor than device B (∼0.57) which is consistent with the J-
V tests. As shown in Fig. 9c, it is obvious that device A has a small
charge transport resistances Rct, indicating the efficient charge trans-
port ability for the CuSCN based PSCs. This improved charge transport
ability would be greatly contributed to high photocurrent. It was also
proved in Fig. 9d, owing to their higher recombination resistance of
device B than that of device A, CuSCN based PSCs show a higher
photocurrent (Liu et al., 2017a, b).
Fig. 10 exhibits the statistical data of ten PSC devices fabricated
Y. Lv et al.
Fig. 11. Stability test of the solar cell based on carbon electrode. (a) Efficiency changed with time, (b) Open voltage changed with time, (c) Short current changed
with time, (d) Fill factor changed with time.
with and without CuSCN. The average PCE of the cells with CuSCN is
9.01% with a Jsc of 19.58 mA·cm−2, Voc of 0.78 V and FF of 0.59. The
average PCE of the solar cell without CuSCN is 6.61% with a Jsc of
17.32 mA·cm−2, Voc of 0.72 V and FF of 0.53. It is obvious that open-
circuit photovoltage (Voc), short-circuit photocurrent density (Jsc) and
FF of CuSCN-based devices are higher than those without CuSCN,
especially the Jsc is 13% higher than that of the solar cell without
CuSCN.
In order to investigate the stability of the solar cell based on carbon
electrode, the cells were put in a silica-gel drier without encapsulate.
The J-V data were test at regular intervals. After 30 days, the effi-
ciencies have a downside. To understand the variation more clearly, the
voltage, current density, FF and efficiencies changed with time are
shown in Fig. 11. In Fig. 11a, we can see that the voltage changed
slightly. But the current density shown a larger fluctuation (Fig. 11b), it
may result from the different test position. Fig. 11c also shows that the
FF decline somewhat after 30 days. Fig. 11d shows that the cell with
and without CuSCN remains 81.2% and 80.4% of the initial efficiency
after 30 days, respectively. It is means that the use of CuSCN does not
influence the stability of cells and carbon increase the stability of per-
ovskite solar cell.
4. Conclusion
In summary, we have assembled perovskite solar cell with TiO2
nanorod arrays, commercial available CuSCN and carbon was used as
hole transport materials to enhance the performance of solar cell. Study
shows that the introduction of CuSCN improve the current density and
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Solar Energy 173 (2018) 7–16
fill factor and enhance the conversion efficiency to 10.01%, which is
29% higher than that of PSC device without CuSCN sample.
Electrochemical impedance reveals that the solar cell with CuSCN has a
low transport resistance and a high recombination resistance, thus
leading to the higher current density. Intensity modulated photovoltage
spectroscopy shows that the solar cell with CuSCN has a long electron
life time. Current attenuation curve shows the current of the solar cell
with CuSCN rise quicker and higher than that of the solar cell without
CuSCN. In addition, study shows that the solar cell using carbon and
CuSCN obtain a high stability. This method simplifies the fabrication
process of the perovskite solar cell and opens a door toward the cheap
and stable and printable perovskite solar cell.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 21676146); the Financial Foundation of State Key
Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering and A Project
Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu
Higher Education Institutions.
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