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Updated: Jan 21, 2026

Monovalent Cation Doping of CH3NH3PbI3 for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells
Published on: March 19, 2017
Simultaneous Bottom-Up Interfacial and Bulk Defect Passivation in Highly Efficient Planar Perovskite Solar Cells
Ding Zheng1,2, Ruixiang Peng3, Gang Wang1
1Department of Chemistry, The Center for Light Energy Activated Processes and the Materials Research Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
Abstract:
Recent perovskite solar cell (PSC) advances have pursued strategies for reducing interfacial energetic mismatches to mitigate energy losses, as well as to minimize interfacial and bulk defects and ion vacancies to maximize charge transfer. Here nonconjugated multi-zwitterionic small-molecule electrolytes (NSEs) are introduced, which act not only as charge-extracting layers for barrier-free charge collection at planar triple cation PSC cathodes but also passivate charged defects at the perovskite bulk/interface via a spontaneous bottom-up passivation effect. Implementing these synergistic properties affords NSE-based planar PSCs that deliver a remarkable power conversion efficiency of 21.18% with a maximum VOC = 1.19 V, in combination with suppressed hysteresis and enhanced environmental, thermal, and light-soaking stability. Thus, this work demonstrates that the bottom-up, simultaneous interfacial and bulk trap passivation using NSE modifiers is a promising strategy to overcome outstanding issues impeding further PSC advances.
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