Sulfamic Acid-Catalyzed Lead Perovskite Formation for Solar Cell Fabrication on Glass or Plastic Substrates

Lead perovskite materials such as methylammonium triiodoplumbate(II) (CH3NH3PbI3, PV) are promising materials for printable solar cell (SC) applications. The preparation of PV involves a series of energetically costly cleavages of the μ-iodo bridges via conversion of a mixture of PbI2 (PI) and methylammonium iodide (CH3NH3I, MAI) in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) into a precursor solution containing a polymeric strip of a plumbate(II) dimer [(MA+)2(PbI3–)2·(DMF)2]m, which then produces a perovskite film with loss of DMF upon spin-coating and heating of the substrate. We report here that the PI-to-PV conversion and the PV crystal growth to micrometer size can be accelerated by a small amount of zwitterionic sulfamic acid (NH3SO3, SA) and that sulfamic acid facilitates electron transfer to a neighboring electron-accepting layer in an SC device. As a result, an SC device on indium tin oxide (ITO)/glass made of a 320 nm thick PV film using 0.7 wt % SA showed a higher short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, and fill factor and hence a 22.5% higher power conversion efficiency of 16.02% compared with the device made without SA. The power conversion efficiency value was reproducible (±0.3% for 25 devices), and the device showed very small hysteresis. The device without any encapsulation showed a respectable longevity on a shelf under nitrogen under ambient light. A flexible device similarly fabricated on ITO/poly(ethylene naphthalate) showed an efficiency of 12.4%.