Improving Performance and Stability of Flexible Planar-Heterojunction Perovskite Solar Cells Using Polymeric Hole-Transport Material

For realizing flexible perovskite solar cells (PSCs), it is important to develop low-temperature processable interlayer materials with excellent charge transporting properties. Herein, a novel polymeric hole-transport material based on 1,4-bis(4-sulfonatobutoxy)benzene and thiophene moieties (PhNa-1T) and its application as a hole-transport layer (HTL) material of high-performance inverted-type flexible PSCs are introduced. Compared with the conventionally used poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), the incorporation of PhNa-1T into HTL of the PSC device is demonstrated to be more effective for improving charge extraction from the perovskite absorber to the HTL and suppressing charge recombination in the bulk perovskite and HTL/perovskite interface. As a result, the flexible PSC using PhNa-1T achieves high photovoltaic performances with an impressive power conversion efficiency of 14.7%. This is, to the best of our knowledge, among the highest performances reported to date for inverted-type flexible PSCs. Moreover, the PhNa-1T-based flexible PSC shows much improved stability under an ambient condition than PEDOT:PSS-based PSC. It is believed that PhNa-1T is a promising candidate as an HTL material for high-performance flexible PSCs.