First-principles study of detrimental iodine vacancy in lead halide perovskite under strain and electron injection

Vacancy defects are universally regarded to be the main defect that limits the photoelectric conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells. In perovskite, iodine vacancy dominates the defect proportion due to its low formation energy. However, the defect property of iodine vacancy (VI) is still in dispute. Ideally, the VI defect is considered to be a shallow level defect near conduction band minimum, meaning that it does not act as a Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) nonradiative recombination center. Herein, we find a direct correlation between compressive strain and VI defect behavior. The compressive strain along the lattice vector b/c direction will drive the VI defect from shallow level to deep level defect, which is related to the formation of Pb-dimer. In addition, the influence of extra electrons is also considered during the structural evolution of VI, which is often observed in the experiments. Therefore, we find that the elimination of compressive strain and extra electrons can be of great significance for improving the photoelectric performance of perovskite solar cells. Our work reveals the defect properties of VI from shallow level one to the SRH recombination center and the inherent physics mechanism of defect evolution under external factors, which provides a strategy to control device defects and eliminate recombination losses.