Toward high-performance carbon-based perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Owing to massive global energy claims and up-to-date environmental issues, the necessity to realize renewable, abundant, efficient, and low-cost energy sources is urgently required. Solar energy is a favorable source that is expected to fulfill the future energy demand all over the world. Organic/inorganic hybrid perovskites are good solar harvesting materials that recently gained intensive attention due to their high absorption coefficient, broadly tunable bandgap, incredible charge mobility, long charge diffusion lengths, and long carrier lifetime. Interestingly, over the past ten years, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have demonstrated striking competitive power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 25%. Despite its rapid progress, a few crucial challenges prevent this ground-breaking technology—which can be summed up as long-lasting stability—from being commercialized. A range of carbon-based materials (CBMs) such as fullerenes, graphene, graphene derivatives, carbon dots, graphene quantum dots, and carbon nanotubes are used extensively in PSCs to improve their performance, especially stability, because they are inexpensive, easily processed, stable, and have unique optoelectronic properties. In this regard, the most recent developments regarding the use of CBMs as interface layers, electron transport layers (ETLs), hole transport layers (HTLs), additives to perovskite layers, as well as counter electrodes are examined in detail. Furthermore, the improved stability as a result of using CBMs in PSCs is emphasized. Last but not least, we address future perspectives on carbon-based PSCs, focusing on existing challenges and potential solutions.