University of Toronto
Bin Chen is a postdoctoral fellow in Sargent lab at the University of Toronto. Bin received his Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from Arizona State University in 2018, under the supervision of Prof. Sefaattin Tongay. His previous research was on understanding defects in 2D materials. He joined Sargent group after Ph.D. and his current focus is on defect passivation and stability enhancement of interfaces in perovskite solar cells.
The energy landscape of reduced-dimensional perovskites (RDPs) can be tailored by adjusting their layer width (n). Recently, two/three-dimensional (2D/3D) heterostructures containing n = 1 and 2 RDPs have produced perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with >25% power conversion efficiency (PCE). Unfortunately, this method does not translate to inverted PSCs due to electron blocking at the 2D/3D interface. In this talk, I will discuss our work on tuning the layer width of RDPs in 2D/3D heterostructures to address this problem. In situ transient absorption spectroscopy during 2D ligand treatment reveals that, in general, larger cations form 2D heterostructures more slowly, resulting in wider RDPs; small modifications to ligand design further affect the preference of n-values of the resultant 2D structure, due to strain relaxation. We discover that 3-fluoro-phenethylammonium (3F-PEAI) induces preferential growth of n ≥ 3 RDPs. Leveraging these insights, we developed efficient inverted PSCs (with a certified quasi-steady-state PCE of 23.91%). Unencapsulated devices operate at room temperature and around 50% relative humidity for over 1,000 h without loss of PCE; and, when subjected to ISOS-L3 accelerated ageing, encapsulated devices retain 92% of initial PCE after 500 h.