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Updated: Feb 11, 2026

Monovalent Cation Doping of CH3NH3PbI3 for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells
Published on: March 19, 2017
Tuning Molecular Interactions for Highly Reproducible and Efficient Formamidinium Perovskite Solar Cells via Adduct
Jin-Wook Lee1, Zhenghong Dai1, Changsoo Lee2
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering and California NanoSystems Institute , University of California , Los Angeles , California 90095 , United States.
Abstract:
The Lewis acid-base adduct approach has been widely used to form uniform perovskite films, which has provided a methodological base for the development of high-performance perovskite solar cells. However, its incompatibility with formamidinium (FA)-based perovskites has impeded further enhancement of photovoltaic performance and stability. Here, we report an efficient and reproducible method to fabricate highly uniform FAPbI3 films via the adduct approach. Replacement of the typical Lewis base dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) with N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) enabled the formation of a stable intermediate adduct phase, which can be converted into a uniform and pinhole-free FAPbI3 film. Infrared and computational analyses revealed a stronger interaction between NMP with the FA cation than DMSO, which facilitates the formation of a stable FAI·PbI2·NMP adduct. On the basis of the molecular interactions with different Lewis bases, we proposed criteria for selecting the Lewis bases. Owed to the high film quality, perovskite solar cells with the highest PCE over 20% (stabilized PCE of 19.34%) and average PCE of 18.83 ± 0.73% were demonstrated.
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