Volume 61, Issue 2 e202113749
Research Article

Intramolecular Noncovalent Interaction-Enabled Dopant-Free Hole-Transporting Materials for High-Performance Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells

Dr. Kun Yang

Dr. Kun Yang

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

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Qiaogan Liao

Qiaogan Liao

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001 China

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Dr. Jun Huang

Dr. Jun Huang

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

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Zilong Zhang

Zilong Zhang

CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of Functional Nanostructures, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350002 China

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Mengyao Su

Mengyao Su

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

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Dr. Zhicai Chen

Dr. Zhicai Chen

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

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Ziang Wu

Ziang Wu

Department of Chemistry, Korea University, Seoul, 136–713 Republic of Korea

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Dong Wang

Dong Wang

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001 China

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Ziwei Lai

Ziwei Lai

Institute of Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518060 China

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Prof. Han Young Woo

Prof. Han Young Woo

Department of Chemistry, Korea University, Seoul, 136–713 Republic of Korea

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Prof. Yan Cao

Prof. Yan Cao

Institute of Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518060 China

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Prof. Peng Gao

Corresponding Author

Prof. Peng Gao

CAS Key Laboratory of Design and Assembly of Functional Nanostructures, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350002 China

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Prof. Xugang Guo

Corresponding Author

Prof. Xugang Guo

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional Oxide Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), No. 1088, Xueyuan Road, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055 China

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First published: 15 November 2021
Citations: 118

Graphical Abstract

By incorporating intramolecular S⋅⋅⋅O noncovalent interactions (INIs) for boosting the intrinsic hole mobilities, two simple-structured dopant-free hole-transporting materials (HTMs) were designed and delivered a remarkable efficiency of 21.10 % with decent device stability in inverted perovskite solar cells, demonstrating the great promise of the INI strategy for accessing high-performance dopant-free HTMs.

Abstract

Intramolecular noncovalent interactions (INIs) have served as a powerful strategy for accessing organic semiconductors with enhanced charge transport properties. Herein, we apply the INI strategy for developing dopant-free hole-transporting materials (HTMs) by constructing two small-molecular HTMs featuring an INI-integrated backbone for high-performance perovskite solar cells (PVSCs). Upon incorporating noncovalent S⋅⋅⋅O interaction into their simple-structured backbones, the resulting HTMs, BTORA and BTORCNA, showed self-planarized backbones, tuned energy levels, enhanced thermal properties, appropriate film morphology, and effective defect passivation. More importantly, the high film crystallinity enables the materials with substantial hole mobilities, thus rendering them as promising dopant-free HTMs. Consequently, the BTORCNA-based inverted PVSCs delivered a power conversion efficiency of 21.10 % with encouraging long-term device stability, outperforming the devices based on BTRA without S⋅⋅⋅O interaction (18.40 %). This work offers a practical approach to designing charge transporting layers with high intrinsic mobilities for high-performance PVSCs.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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