Core/Shell Nanocrystal Tailored Carrier Dynamics in Hysteresisless Perovskite Solar Cells with ∼20% Efficiency and Long Operational Stability

The ambient stability, hysteresis, and trap states in organo-halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are correlated to the influence of interlayer interfaces and grain boundaries. Astute incorporation of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) and Au/CZTS core/shell nanocrystals (NCs) can realize the goal of simultaneously achieving better performance and ambient stability of the PSCs. With optimized Au/CZTS NC size and concentration in the photoactive layer, power conversion efficiency can be increased up to 19.97 +/- 0.6% with ambient air stability >800 h, as compared to 14.46 +/- 1.02% for the unmodified devices. Through efficient carrier generation by CZTS and perovskite, accompanied by the plasmonic effect of Au, carrier density is sufficiently increased as validated by transient absorption spectroscopy. NCs facilitate the interfacial charge transfer by suitable band alignment and removal of recombination centers such as metallic Pb-0, surface defects, or impurity sites. NC embedding also increases the perovskite grain size and assists in pinhole filling, reducing the trap state density.