Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have created much excitement in the past years and attract spotlight attention. This talk will provide an overview of the reasons for this development highlighting the historic development as well as the specific material properties that make perovskites so attractive for the research community.

The current challenges are exemplified using a high-performance, multicomponent system for PSCs (including Rb, Cs, methylammonium (MA), formamidinium (FA) perovskites). The resulting compositions exhibit higher performances, resilience against external stressors and reproducibility. [1-4]

Unfortunately, many of the newly formulated liquid precursors often exhibit complex crystallization behaviour struggling to expel the typically used DMSO solvent. To delay the crystallization time, two strategies are proposed to remove the strongly complexating DMSO molecules through a) modified processing of the liquid thin-film and b) a coordination solvent with a high donicity and a low vapor-pressure leading to a marked improvement in the overall film quality.[5]

Lastly, interface manipulation, especially on top of the formed perovskite, is becoming a central topic to advance further. Typically, this involves chemical surface treatments with a complex interaction. Here, light annealing is introduced as a universal, non-chemical approach to modify the perovskite surface resulting in a reduced surface recombination.[6]

[1] McMeekin, Saliba et al., Science (2016)

[2] Saliba et al., Cesium-containing triple cation perovskite solar cells: improved stability, reproducibility and high efficiency, Energy & Environmental Science (2016)

[3] M. Saliba et al., Incorporation of rubidium cations into perovskite solar cells improves photovoltaic

[4] Turren-Cruz, Hagfeldt, Saliba, Methylammonium-free, high-performance and stable perovskite solar cells on a planar architecture, Science (2018)

[5] Zuo,…, Saliba; Coordination Chemistry as a Universal Strategy for a Controlled Perovskite Crystallization, Advanced Materials (2023)

[6] Kedia,…, Saliba; Light Makes Right: Laser Polishing for Surface Modification of Perovskite Solar Cells, ACS Energy Letters (2023