Inverted perovskite solar cells using dimethylacridine-based dopants

Doping of perovskite semiconductors1 and passivation of their grain boundaries2 remain challenging but essential for advancing high-efficiency perovskite solar cells. Particularly, it is crucial to build perovskite/indium tin oxide (ITO) Schottky contact based inverted devices without predepositing a layer of hole-transport material3–5. Here we report a dimethylacridine-based molecular doping process used to construct a well-matched p-perovskite/ITO contact, along with all-round passivation of grain boundaries, achieving a certified power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.39%. The molecules are shown to be extruded from the precursor solution to the grain boundaries and the bottom of the film surface in the chlorobenzene-quenched crystallization process, which we call a molecule-extrusion process. The core coordination complex between the deprotonated phosphonic acid group of the molecule and lead polyiodide of perovskite is responsible for both mechanical absorption and electronic charge transfer, and leads to p-type doping of the perovskite film. We created an efficient device with a PCE of 25.86% (reverse scan) and that maintained 96.6% of initial PCE after 1,000 h of light soaking.