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Low cost triazatruxene hole transporting material for >20% efficiency perovskite solar cells

Connell, A; Zhiping, W; Lin, Y-H; Greenwood, PC; Wiles, AA; Jones, EW; Furnell, L; Anthony, RVE; Kershaw, CP; Cooke, G; Snaith, HJ; Holliman, PJ

Authors

A Connell

W Zhiping

Y-H Lin

PC Greenwood

AA Wiles

EW Jones

L Furnell

CP Kershaw

G Cooke

HJ Snaith

PJ Holliman



Abstract

Organic hole-transporting materials (HTM) have shown excellent ability in achieving high efficiency
perovskite solar cells. However, their high cost significantly limits their applications in scaling-up
perovskite solar cells. Here, we report an efficient, low-cost HTM, called TAT-tBuSty, comprising a
central triazatruxene moiety with 3 terminal tert-butoxy styrene groups and 3 hexyl side chains on the
indole nitrogen. For the first time, we use an inexpensive liquid precursor to attach the donor ligand to
the molecule. This enables purification of the HTM using a silica plug and recrystallization without the
need for complicated column chromatography, which is typically required to purify solid-precursorprepared
HTMs. We estimate that the cost for the purified TAT-tBuSty is $69.90 g�1, which is 35%
cheaper than the widely-used 2,207,70-tetrakis-(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenyl-amine)-9,90-spirobifluorene
(spiro-OMeTAD; ca. $112.05 g�1). Using this low-cost TAT-tBuSty as the HTM in a caesium-formamidinium
mixed-cation perovskite solar cell, we have successfully achieved a champion power conversion efficiency
(PCE) of 20.3% (19.4% stabilized efficiency), which is comparable to the efficiency of devices using the
reference spiro-OMeTAD HTM. Our work is crucial for up-scaling of next-generation high-performance
metal-halide perovskite solar cells.

Citation

Connell, A., Zhiping, W., Lin, Y., Greenwood, P., Wiles, A., Jones, E., …Holliman, P. (2019). Low cost triazatruxene hole transporting material for >20% efficiency perovskite solar cells. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 7(18), 5235-5243. https://doi.org/10.1039/c8tc04231d

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 7, 2018
Online Publication Date Nov 15, 2018
Publication Date Jan 1, 2019
Deposit Date Apr 20, 2020
Journal Journal of Materials Chemistry C
Print ISSN 2050-7526
Electronic ISSN 2050-7534
Publisher Royal Society of Chemistry
Volume 7
Issue 18
Pages 5235-5243
DOI https://doi.org/10.1039/c8tc04231d
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1039/C8TC04231D
Related Public URLs http://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/journalissues/tc#!recentarticles&all
Additional Information Access Information : Author Accepted Manuscript available at: http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/173162/
Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Projects : EPSRC-SPACE modules
Grant Number: EP/M015254/1