New material boosts perovskite solar efficiency by 20% - Kyoto uni

(a) Sheet-shaped organic semiconductor (HND-Azulene) and (b) the performance of peroskite solar cells using HND-Azulene and the current standard material. Source: Kyoto University (http://www.kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp).

A research team at Kyoto University has designed a new material, HND-Azulene, that can increase the efficiency of perovskite solar cells by up to 20% when compared to the commonly used Spiro-OMeTAD.

Perovskite photovoltaic (PV) cells that use HND-Azulene as a hole-transporting material (HTM) have exhibited a power conversion efficiency of over 16.5%. This compares to an efficiency of 13.6% for cells using the current standard Spiro-OMeTAD.

The research group has designed and synthesized the HND-Azulene two-dimensionally expanded system with a sheet-shaped structure. Based on the evaluation and a comparison of the optoelectronic and electrochemical properties of HND-Azulene and Spiro-OMeTAD, the scientists have been able to elucidate the factors that are required for HTMs to act efficiently in perovskite solar cells. In line with these new molecular design principles, they believe that more sophisticated HTMs should be easily attainable.

The full research article is available here. Participants in the project come from Kyoto University’s Division of Synthetic Chemistry, from Osaka University and from Boston College in the USA.

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