Combinatorial Vacuum‐Deposition of Wide Bandgap Perovskite Films and Solar Cells

Abstract

Abstract The development of vacuum‐deposited perovskite materials and devices is partially slowed down by the minor research effort in this direction, due to the high cost of the required research tools. But there is also another factor, thermal co‐deposition in high vacuum involves the simultaneous sublimation of several precursors with an overall deposition rate in the range of few Å s−1. This leads to a deposition time of hours with only a single set of process parameters per batch, hence to a long timeframe to optimize even a single perovskite composition. Here we report the combinatorial vacuum deposition of wide bandgap perovskites using 4 sources and a non‐rotating sample holder. By using small pixel substrates, more than 100 solar cells can be produced with different perovskite absorbers in a single deposition run. The materials are characterized by spatially resolved methods, including optical, morphological, and structural techniques. By fine‐tuning of the deposition rates, the gradient can be altered and the best‐performing formulations in standard depositions with rotation can be reproduced. This is viewed as an approach that can serve as a basis to prototype other compositions, overcoming the current limitations of vacuum deposition as a research tool for perovskite films.

Keywords

• combinatorial screening
• evaporation
• high‐throughput deposition
• perovskite solar cells
• vacuum deposition