Perovskites photovoltaic solar cells: An overview of current status

Perovskite based solar cells have recently emerged as one of the possible solutions in the photovoltaic industry for availing cheap solution processable solar cells. Hybrid perovskites display special combination of low bulk-trap densities, ambipolar charge transport properties, good broadband absorption properties and long charge carrier diffusion lengths, which make them suitable for photovoltaic applications. The year 2015 witnessed an upsurge in the published research articles on perovskite solar cells (PSC) which is indicative of the potential of this material. Since the introduction of PSC the power conversion efficiency has reached above 22% in a relatively short period of time. However, the poor reproducibility in device fabrication and lack of uniformity of the PSCs performances is a major challenge in obtaining highly efficient large scale PSC devices. The aim of this paper is to present a brief review on the current status of perovskites based solar cell due to the use of different device architectures, fabrication techniques as well as on the use of various electron and hole interfacial layers (HTMs and ETMs). The review also discusses the basic mechanisms for device operation which provides better understanding on the properties of the various layers of device structures.