Strongly emissive perovskite nanocrystal inks for high-voltage solar cells

Lead halide perovskite semiconductors have recently gained wide interest following their successful embodiment in solid-state photovoltaic devices with impressive power-conversion efficiencies, while offering a relatively simple and low-cost processability. Although the primary optoelectronic properties of these materials have already met the requirement for high-efficiency optoelectronic technologies, industrial scale-up requires more robust processing methods, as well as solvents that are less toxic than the ones that have been commonly used so successfully on the lab-scale. Here we report a fast, room-temperature synthesis of inks based on CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals using short, low-boiling-point ligands and environmentally friendly solvents. Requiring no lengthy post-synthesis treatments, the inks are directly used to fabricate films of high optoelectronic quality, exhibiting photoluminescence quantum yields higher than 30% and an amplified spontaneous emission threshold as low as 1.5 μJ cm−2. Finally, we demonstrate the fabrication of perovskite nanocrystal-based solar cells, with open-circuit voltages as high as 1.5 V.