Replacement of Biphenyl by Bipyridine Enabling Powerful Hole Transport Materials for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

Here, 2,2'- and 3,3'-bipyridine are introduced for the first time as the core structure to get two new hole transport materials (HTMs), namely F22 and F33. The electron-withdrawing nature of bipyridine lowers the HOMO level of the new compounds and enhances the open-circuit voltage of perovskite solar cells. Especially for F33, the better planarity leads to better conjugation in the whole molecule and the molecular interaction is enhanced. Hole-mobility tests, steady-state photoluminescence (PL) spectra as well as time-resolved PL decay results demonstrate that the new HTMs exhibit good hole extraction and hole-transporting property. Impressive power conversion efficiencies of 17.71 and 18.48 % are achieved in conventional planar perovskite (CH₃ NH₃ PbI_3-x Cl_x ) solar cells containing F22 and F33 as HTMs, respectively. As far as we know, this is the first report on bypiridine-based HTMs with leading efficiencies, and the design motif in this work opens a new way for devising HTMs in the future.