Organohalide Lead Perovskites: More Stable than Glass under Gamma-Ray Radiation

Organohalide metal perovskites have emerged as promising semiconductor materials for use as space solar cells and radiation detectors. However, there is a lack of study of their stability under operational conditions. Here a stability study of perovskite solar cells under gamma-rays and visible light simultaneously is reported. The perovskite active layers are shown to retain 96.8% of their initial power conversion efficiency under continuous irradiation of gamma-rays and light for 1535 h, where gamma-rays have an accumulated dose of 2.3 Mrad. In striking contrast, a glass substrate shows obvious loss of transmittance under the same irradiation conditions. The excellent stability of the perovskite solar cells benefits from the self-healing behavior to recover its efficiency loss from the early degradation induced by gamma-ray irradiation. Defect density characterization reveals that gamma-ray irradiation does not induce electronic trap states. These observations demonstrate the prospects of perovskite materials in applications of radiation detectors and space solar cells.