Interfacial Engineering through Chloride-Functionalized Self-Assembled Monolayers for High-Performance Perovskite Solar Cells

The family of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite (OIHPs) materials is one of the most promising for very high-efficiency photovoltaic solar cell application. In the present work, the effect of a series of self-assembled monolayers placed at the TiO2-perovskite junction, on the functioning of triple cation perovskite solar cells has been investigated. We show that employing 4-chlorobenzoic acid leads to the marked boosting of the solar cell performances. The starting pristine cell had a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.3% and the chemical engineering permitted to reach a PCE up to 21.35%. Our experimental study completed by density functional theory calculations and modeling show that this progress is due to the reduction of interfacial states, to the improvement of the quality of the OIHP material and to the structural continuity between TiO2 and the OIHP. Especially, we demonstrate that the interfacial chemical interactions are important to consider in the design of highly efficient devices.