Retardation of Trap-Assisted Recombination in Lead Halide Perovskite Solar Cells by a Dimethylbiguanide Anchor Layer

Reaching the full potential of solar cells based on photo-absorbers of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites requires highly efficient charge extraction at the interface between perovskite and charge transporting layer. This demand is generally challenged by the presence of under-coordinated metal or halogen ions, causing surface charge trapping and resultant recombination losses. These problems can be tackled by introducing a small molecule interfacial anchor layer based on dimethylbiguanide (DMBG). Benefitting from interactions between the nitrogen-containing functional groups in DMBG and unsaturated ions in CH₃ NH₃ PbI₃ perovskites, the electron extraction of TiO₂ is dramatically improved in association with reduced Schottky-Read-Hall recombination, as revealed by photoluminescence spectroscopy. As a consequence, the power conversion efficiency of CH₃ NH₃ PbI₃ solar cells is boosted from 17.14 to 19.1 %, showing appreciably reduced hysteresis. The demonstrated molecular strategy based on DMBG enables one to achieve meliorations on key figures of merit in halide perovskite solar cells with improved stability.