Outstanding Indoor Performance of Perovskite Photovoltaic Cells - Effect of Device Architectures and Interlayers

Indoor photovoltaics is one of the best sustainable and reliable energy source for low power consumption electronics such as the rapidly growing Internet of Things. Perovskite photovoltaic (PPV) cells with three benchmark device architectures – mesoporous PPV (mPPV) and inverted PPV (iPPV) with alternative hole transporting layers (HTLs), and carbon-based PPV (cPPV) are studied under simulated indoor environment. The mPPV cell using typical Spiro-OMeTAD as HTL shows the highest maximum power density (Pmax) of 19.9 W/cm under 200 lux and 115.6 W/cm under 1000 lux (without masking), which is among the best of the indoor PV. Interestingly, when PTAA is used as HTL in mPPV cell, the Pmax drops to almost zero under indoor light environment while its performance under one sun remains similar. On the other hand, when PEDOT:PSS is replaced by Poly-TPD as HTL in 2 iPPV cell, the Pmax under indoor light improves significantly and is comparable to that of the best mPPV cell. This significant difference in indoor performance correlates well with their leakage current. The HTL-free cPPV cell, prepared by fully up-scalable techniques, shows promising Pmax of 16.3 W/cm 2 and 89.4 W/cm under 200 and 1000 lux, respectively. A practical scale 5cm × 5cm cPPV module is fabricated as a demonstration for real applications. Indoor photovoltaics (PV) has drawn much attention in recent years due to the prospect of powering low power consumption electronics such as the Internet of Things which has been growing rapidly worldwide, and industry has forecasted to reach 30 billion devices in 2020 and 75 billion devices in 2025. Sensors, wireless nodes, small displays, etc. are all low power consumption especially in sleep mode operation, from nanowatts to milliwatts, which could be supplied locally by PV devices via harvesting light from indoor environments. These small electronics play an essential role for constructing future environments such as smart building as well as next generation factory and retail market. For instance, electronic price tags with indoor PV devices embedded as a power source are wirelessly connected to a central computing system where individual prices can be controlled and updated via the wireless network. Similar concepts could be applied in most buildings and manufacturing lines where lots of sensors are required for monitoring and interacting

[1]  T. Aramoto,et al.  Interface control to enhance the fill factor over 0.70 in a large-area CIS-based thin-film PV technology , 2009 .

[2]  Adel Nasiri,et al.  Indoor power harvesting using photovoltaic cells for low power applications , 2009, 2009 13th European Conference on Power Electronics and Applications.

[3]  Dan Rubenstein,et al.  Energy harvesting active networked tags (EnHANTs) for ubiquitous object networking , 2010, IEEE Wireless Communications.

[4]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Organic photovoltaics for low light applications , 2011 .

[5]  Wim Turkenburg,et al.  Charge yield potential of indoor-operated solar cells incorporated into Product Integrated Photovoltaic (PIPV) , 2011 .

[6]  Sandhya Kortagere,et al.  Pyrazoleamide compounds are potent antimalarials that target Na+ homeostasis in intraerythrocytic Plasmodium falciparum , 2014, Nature Communications.

[7]  Arnab Raha,et al.  Powering the Internet of Things , 2014, 2014 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED).

[8]  Manos M. Tentzeris,et al.  Solar/Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting and Wireless Power Transmission , 2014, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[9]  Joseph W. Matiko,et al.  Review of the application of energy harvesting in buildings , 2013 .

[10]  Bernard Kippelen,et al.  All-plastic solar cells with a high photovoltaic dynamic range , 2014 .

[11]  M. Grätzel,et al.  A hole-conductor–free, fully printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cell with high stability , 2014, Science.

[12]  S. Beeby,et al.  The effect of the type of illumination on the energy harvesting performance of solar cells , 2015 .

[13]  Christopher M. Proctor,et al.  Effect of leakage current and shunt resistance on the light intensity dependence of organic solar cells , 2015 .

[14]  Chien-Yu Chen,et al.  Perovskite Photovoltaics for Dim‐Light Applications , 2015 .

[15]  D. Blaauw,et al.  AlGaAs Photovoltaics for Indoor Energy Harvesting in mm-Scale Wireless Sensor Nodes , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[16]  I. Mathews,et al.  Performance of III–V Solar Cells as Indoor Light Energy Harvesters , 2016, IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

[17]  A. Di Carlo,et al.  Mesoporous perovskite solar cells and the role of nanoscale compact layers for remarkable all-round high efficiency under both indoor and outdoor illumination , 2016 .

[18]  Harrison Ka Hin Lee,et al.  Is organic photovoltaics promising for indoor applications , 2016 .

[19]  James W. Evans,et al.  Organic solar cells and fully printed super-capacitors optimized for indoor light energy harvesting , 2016 .

[20]  Kwanghee Lee,et al.  Achieving Large‐Area Planar Perovskite Solar Cells by Introducing an Interfacial Compatibilizer , 2017, Advanced materials.

[21]  Henk J. Bolink,et al.  Removing Leakage and Surface Recombination in Planar Perovskite Solar Cells , 2017 .

[22]  Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin,et al.  One-Year stable perovskite solar cells by 2D/3D interface engineering , 2017, Nature Communications.

[23]  M. Freitag,et al.  Dye-sensitized solar cells for efficient power generation under ambient lighting , 2017, Nature Photonics.

[24]  Ganesh D. Sharma,et al.  Toward High‐Performance Polymer Photovoltaic Devices for Low‐Power Indoor Applications , 2017 .

[25]  S. Zakeeruddin,et al.  High performance carbon-based printed perovskite solar cells with humidity assisted thermal treatment , 2017 .

[26]  Dong Uk Lee,et al.  Iodide management in formamidinium-lead-halide–based perovskite layers for efficient solar cells , 2017, Science.

[27]  Bo Chen,et al.  Defect passivation in hybrid perovskite solar cells using quaternary ammonium halide anions and cations , 2017, Nature Energy.

[28]  Zhe Li,et al.  Organic photovoltaic cells – promising indoor light harvesters for self-sustainable electronics , 2018 .

[29]  Fang‐Chung Chen,et al.  Plasmonic-Enhanced Organic Photovoltaic Devices for Low-Power Light Applications , 2018, IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

[30]  L. Cinà,et al.  Efficient fully laser-patterned flexible perovskite modules and solar cells based on low-temperature solution-processed SnO2/mesoporous-TiO2 electron transport layers , 2018, Nano Research.

[31]  S. Zakeeruddin,et al.  Direct Contact of Selective Charge Extraction Layers Enables High-Efficiency Molecular Photovoltaics , 2018, Joule.

[32]  Hang Yin,et al.  Designing a ternary photovoltaic cell for indoor light harvesting with a power conversion efficiency exceeding 20 , 2018 .

[33]  F. Cacialli,et al.  Highly efficient perovskite solar cells for light harvesting under indoor illumination via solution processed SnO2/MgO composite electron transport layers , 2018, Nano Energy.

[34]  Matthew J. Carnie,et al.  Homogeneous and highly controlled deposition of low viscosity inks and application on fully printable perovskite solar cells , 2018 .