Post-treatment techniques for high-performance perovskite solar cells

Perovskite solar cells are poised to be a game changer in photovoltaic technology with a current certified efficiency of 25.2%, already surpassing that for multicrystalline silicon solar cells. On the path to higher efficiencies and much needed higher stability, however, interfacial and bulk defects in the active material should be carefully engineered or passivated. Post-treatment techniques show great potential to address defect issues (e.g., by coarsening the perovskite grains or establishing an interfacial heterogeneous layer). In this article, we summarize current fundamental understanding of the major energy-loss routes in perovskite materials and devices, including bulk/interfacial defects mediated nonradiative recombination and band mismatch-induced recombination. This is followed by a survey of the important post-treatment techniques developed over the past few years to minimize energy loss in perovskite solar cells, including solvent annealing, amine halide solution dripping-induced Ostwald ripening, three-dimensional–two-dimensional interface layer from phenethylammonium iodide (PEAI) dripping, and wide bandgap interface layer engineering from n-hexyl trimethylammonium bromide washing. Finally, we provide a prospective view about further developments of post-treatment techniques.