Bridging the Buried Interface with Piperazine Dihydriodide Layer for High Performance Inverted Solar Cells

Given that it is closely related to perovskite crystallization and interfacial trap densities, buried interfacial engineering is crucial for creating effective and stable perovskite solar cells. Compared with the in-depth studies on the defect at the top perovskite interface, exploring the defect of the buried side of perovskite film is relatively complicated and scanty owing to the non-exposed feature. Herein, the degradation process is probed from the buried side of perovskite films with continuous illumination and its effects on morphology and photoelectronic characteristics with a facile lift-off method. Additionally, a buffer layer of Piperazine Dihydriodide (PDI₂ ) is inserted into the imbedded bottom interface. The PDI₂ buffer layer is able to lubricate the mismatched thermal expansion between perovskite and substrate, resulting in the release of lattice strain and thus a void-free buried interface. With the PDI₂ buffer layer, the degradation originates from the growing voids and increasing non-radiative recombination at the imbedded bottom interfaces are suppressed effectively, leading to prolonged operation lifetime of the perovskite solar cells. As a result, the power conversion efficiency of an optimized p-i-n inverted photovoltaic device reaches 23.47% (with certified 23.42%) and the unencapsulated devices maintain 90.27% of initial efficiency after 800 h continuous light soaking.