Improved charge transport and injection in a meso-superstructured solar cell by a tractable pre-spin-coating process

In meso-superstructured solar cells (MSSCs), the state-of-the-art perovskite acts as both the light harvester and electron transporter due to its ambipolar properties. The inefficient pore filling and infiltration of perovskite directly affect the continuous distribution of perovskite in mesoporous Al2O3, resulting in discontinuous carrier transport in the mesoporous structure and insufficient electron injection to the compact TiO2 layer. Herein, we introduce a simple pre-spin-coating process to improve the infiltration and pore filling of perovskite, which results in higher light absorption and enhanced electron injection, as seen in UV-vis spectra and photoluminescence (PL) spectra, respectively. We first apply time of flight (TOF) experiments to characterize charge transport in MSSCs, and the results reveal that more continuous charge transport pathways are formed with the pre-spin-coating process. This effective method, with ease of processing, demonstrates obviously improved photocurrents, reaching an efficiency as high as 14%, and promotes the application of lead halide perovskite materials in the photovoltaics field.