Interfacial Degradation due to Unbalanced Charge Extraction in
Perovskite Photovoltaics
byHannu P. Pasanen, Vladyslav Hnapovskyi, Oleksandr Matiash, Badri Vishal, José P. Jurado, Christopher E. Petoukhoff, Anand Selvin Subbiah, Stefaan De Wolf, Frédéric Laquai
ArticleYear:2025
Abstract
Perovskite photovoltaics are plagued by low
stability, and achieving stable devices requires eliminating every
possible source of defects. One such source is photoinduced
degradation during device fabrication if incomplete devices are not
kept in the dark during preparation, transfer, or storage. After
perovskite deposition but before addition of the upper layers, the
degradation of the incomplete devices upon illumination is caused
by unbalanced charge extraction and the electric field they produce
at the buried interface. This phenomenon is becoming more
crucial, as passivation is now also required for the buried interface,
but the passivants can be more prone to damage by the unbalanced
charge extraction than the perovskite itself. Herein, we demonstrate
a buried interface passivant that improves the efficiency and
stability of the complete device but is highly unstable in incomplete devices. The degradation of the passivant triggers phase
segregation in the perovskite itself, leading to rapid nonradiative charge recombination at the interface. The case exemplifies how
slow, or blocked, electron extraction can manifest as degradation on the hole transfer side, and it is important to minimize light
exposure during device preparation.