PlasmaPerovSol · A full plasma and vacuum integrated process for the synthesis of high efficiency planar and 1D conformal perovskite solar cells

A full plasma and vacuum integrated process for the synthesis of high efficiency planar and 1D conformal perovskite solar cells

"The increasing costs of the fossil fuels together with their environmental harm are encouraging the science community and companies to develop efficient ways to use the available renewable resources. Photovoltaic or solar cells (SC) devices –that transform light into electricity- have been extensively studied in the last decades since they represent a promising way to exploit the sun energy. Currently, perovskite-based SC are receiving increasing attention due to their low cost and high efficiency. First results appeared less than 10 years ago related with Dye-Sensitised Solar Cells. Currently, Perovskite-based solar cells are mostly fabricated via wet methods in planar architecture. Perovskite SC are very promising as an alternative for the existing ones, but still need to advance to reach higher efficiency and durability and require synthesis methods compatible with the industrial production of CMOS devices at wafer scale. Inherent to the nature of the wet approaches, usually appear several drawbacks as contaminations and chemical reactions on the interfaces that might result deterioration of the SC performance and therefore should be avoided. The improvement of crucial aspects of the cells requires a clean alternative approach allowing the fabrication of the different components of the SC device in an integrated sequential process in one-single reactor. PlasmaPerovSol main objective is the fabrication of a complete perovskite solar cell device by a full plasma and vacuum integrated process carried out under the premises of the “one reactor"" concept. Plasma and vacuum processes present as advantage the high purity and stoichiometric control on the deposition within an ample range of materials compositions (organic, inorganic, hybrid, gradient compositions). The synthesis approach is compatible with large scale industrial production and the low temperatures used make the approach compatible with current CMOS technology. The research developed has fulfilled many of the objectives proposed. We have developed the proposed methodology, setting up all the experimental procedures for the fabrication of a complete solar cell in “one reactor”. The materials deposited by this plasma/vacuum protocol have been be compared with the ones deposited by wet methods and has enabled the understanding of the performance of every vacuum deposited layer. Another unprecedented objective fulfilled is the fabrication of conformal deposits over different templates. The final demonstration of the approach has been realised by the deposition of a complete perovskite solar cell in a 1D-core@multishell architecture (see Figure). "

Data: CORDIS, © European Union