ACS Publications. Most Trusted. Most Cited. Most Read
NiOx Passivation in Perovskite Solar Cells: From Surface Reactivity to Device Performance

OR SEARCH CITATIONS

My Activity
Publications

Figure 1Loading Img
Download Hi-Res ImageDownload to MS-PowerPointCite This:ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2024, 16, 32, 42835-42850
    Surfaces, Interfaces, and Applications

    NiOx Passivation in Perovskite Solar Cells: From Surface Reactivity to Device Performance
    Click to copy article linkArticle link copied!

    • John Mohanraj
      John Mohanraj
      Department of Chemistry, University of Cologne, Greinstrasse 4-6, Cologne 50939, Germany
      More by John Mohanraj
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-6333-7063
    • Bipasa Samanta
      Bipasa Samanta
      Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Technion─Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3600003, Israel
      More by Bipasa Samanta
    • Osbel Almora
      Osbel Almora
      Departament d’Enginyeria Electrònica Elèctrica i Automàtica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain
      Center for Nanoscience and Sustainable Technologies (CNATS), Department of Physical, Chemical, and Natural Systems, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla 41013, Spain
      More by Osbel Almora
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-2523-0203
    • Renán Escalante
      Renán Escalante
      Center for Nanoscience and Sustainable Technologies (CNATS), Department of Physical, Chemical, and Natural Systems, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla 41013, Spain
      More by Renán Escalante
    • Lluis F. Marsal
      Lluis F. Marsal
      Departament d’Enginyeria Electrònica Elèctrica i Automàtica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain
      More by Lluis F. Marsal
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5976-1408
    • Sandra Jenatsch
      Sandra Jenatsch
      Fluxim AG, Katharina-Sulzer-Platz 2, 8400 Winterthur, Switzerland
      More by Sandra Jenatsch
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1311-9898
    • Arno Gadola
      Arno Gadola
      Fluxim AG, Katharina-Sulzer-Platz 2, 8400 Winterthur, Switzerland
      More by Arno Gadola
    • Beat Ruhstaller
      Beat Ruhstaller
      Fluxim AG, Katharina-Sulzer-Platz 2, 8400 Winterthur, Switzerland
      More by Beat Ruhstaller
    • Juan A. Anta
      Juan A. Anta
      Center for Nanoscience and Sustainable Technologies (CNATS), Department of Physical, Chemical, and Natural Systems, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla 41013, Spain
      More by Juan A. Anta
    • Maytal Caspary Toroker
      Maytal Caspary Toroker
      Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Technion─Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3600003, Israel
      The Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program, Technion─Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
      More by Maytal Caspary Toroker
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1449-2977
    • Selina Olthof*
      Selina Olthof
      Department of Chemistry, University of Cologne, Greinstrasse 4-6, Cologne 50939, Germany
      *Email: [email protected]
      More by Selina Olthof
      Orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8871-1549
    Other Access OptionsSupporting Information (1)

    ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

    Cite this: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2024, 16, 32, 42835–42850
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c06709
    Published August 1, 2024
    Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society
    Request reuse permissions

    Abstract

    Click to copy section linkSection link copied!
    Abstract Image

    Nonstoichiometric nickel oxide (NiOx) is one of the very few metal oxides successfully used as hole extraction layer in p–i–n type perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Its favorable optoelectronic properties and facile large-scale preparation methods are potentially relevant for future commercialization of PSCs, though currently low operational stability of PSCs is reported when a NiOx hole extraction layer is used in direct contact with the perovskite absorber. Poorly understood degradation reactions at this interface are seen as cause for the inferior stability, and a variety of interface passivation approaches have been shown to be effective in improving the overall solar cell performance. To gain a better understanding of the processes happening at this interface, we systematically passivated specific defects on NiOx with three different categories of organic/inorganic compounds. The effects on NiOx and the perovskite (MAPbI3) deposited on top were investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Here, we find that the perovskite’s structural stability and film formation can be significantly affected by the passivation treatment of the NiOx surface. In combination with density functional theory (DFT) calculations, a likely origin of NiOx–perovskite degradation interactions is proposed. The surface passivated NiOx layers were incorporated into MAPbI3-based PSCs, and the influence on device performance and operational stability was investigated by current–voltage (J–V) characterization, impedance spectroscopy (IS), and open circuit voltage decay (OCVD) measurements. Interestingly, we find that a superior structural stability due to interface passivation must not relate to high operational stability. The discrepancy comes from the formation of excess ions at the interface, which negatively impacts all solar cell parameters.

    Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society

    Subjects

    what are subjects

    Keywords

    what are keywords

    Read this article

    To access this article, please review the available access options below.

    Get instant access

    Purchase Access

    Read this article for 48 hours. Check out below using your ACS ID or as a guest.

    Recommended

    Access through Your Institution

    You may have access to this article through your institution.

    Your institution does not have access to this content. Add or change your institution or let them know you’d like them to include access.

    Supporting Information

    Click to copy section linkSection link copied!

    The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.4c06709.

    • Additional data (larger set of SEM images, XPS spectra for I 3d and lead 4f, XPS data of passivated surfaces, XPS O 1s fits, XPS Ni 2p data sets, atomistic model for DFT calculations, DFT Bader charges, solar cell J–V curves and solar cell parameters, Jsc–Voc curves, PL spectra, impedance spectra, fit of the high-frequency and low-frequency resistances as a function of Voc), computational details, and computed coordinates of all optimized structures (PDF)

    Terms & Conditions

    Electronic Supporting Information files are available without a subscription to ACS Web Editions. The American Chemical Society holds a copyright ownership interest in any copyrightable Supporting Information. Files available from the ACS website may be downloaded for personal use only. Users are not otherwise permitted to reproduce, republish, redistribute, or sell any Supporting Information from the ACS website, either in whole or in part, in either machine-readable form or any other form without permission from the American Chemical Society. For permission to reproduce, republish and redistribute this material, requesters must process their own requests via the RightsLink permission system. Information about how to use the RightsLink permission system can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/permissions.html.

    Cited By

    Click to copy section linkSection link copied!
    Citation Statements
    Explore this article's citation statements on scite.ai
    powered by  Scite

    This article is cited by 6 publications.

    1. Seren Dilara Öz, Selina Olthof. Effect of Hole Extraction Layer on the Composition of Thermally Evaporated Formamidinium-Based Mixed Halide Perovskites. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2025, 17 (16) , 24535-24546. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c21701
    2. Nidia G. García-Peña, Mahmoud Nabil, Dena Pourjafari, Diecenia Peralta-Domínguez, Wendy Yaznay Padrón-Hernández, Adriana P. Franco-Bacca, Araceli Ríos-Flores, Beatriz Eugenia Heredia-Cervera, Renan Escalante, Geonel Rodríguez Gattorno, Milenis Acosta, Paul Pistor, Juan Antonio Anta, Gerko Oskam. Improving the Performance of Carbon-Based Perovskite Solar Cells by the Incorporation of a Screen-Printed NiCo2O4 Interlayer. ACS Applied Energy Materials 2025, 8 (3) , 1446-1457. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.4c01720
    3. Fu Liu, Yijun Zhu, Jian Xiong, Zhen He, Yuanwei Pu, Yongchao Liang, Qiaofei Hu, Yinqi Zuo, Qiyu Yang, Dongjie Wang, Yu Huang, Qiaogan Liao, Zheling Zhang, Jian Zhang. Efficient post-treatment strategy for enhancing the performance and stability of the inverted perovskite solar cells based on Boc-D-Val-OH. Organic Electronics 2025, 141 , 107228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2025.107228
    4. Hanhong Zhang, Wenjing Hou, Yuanlong Deng, Jun Song, Fan Zhang. Enhancing inverted perovskite solar cells via hydrophilic surface modification of NiO x using aluminate coupling agents. Journal of Materials Chemistry A 2025, 384 https://doi.org/10.1039/D5TA01516B
    5. Cody R. Allen, Bishal Bhandari, Weijie Xu, Mark Lee, Julia W. P. Hsu. Machine learning enhanced characterization and optimization of photonic cured MAPbI 3 for efficient perovskite solar cells. Journal of Materials Informatics 2024, https://doi.org/10.20517/jmi.2024.72
    6. Osbel Almora, Pilar López-Varo, Renán Escalante, John Mohanraj, Lluis F. Marsal, Selina Olthof, Juan A. Anta. Instability analysis of perovskite solar cells via short-circuit impedance spectroscopy: A case study on NiOx passivation. Journal of Applied Physics 2024, 136 (9) https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0216983
    Download PDF
    Go to ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
    Get e-Alerts
    Get e-Alerts

    ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

    Cite this: ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2024, 16, 32, 42835–42850
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c06709
    Published August 1, 2024
    Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society
    Request reuse permissions

    Article Views

    1324

    Altmetric

    -

    Citations

    6
    Learn about these metrics

    Article Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.

    Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.

    The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated.