Eliminating Resistance–Capacitance Coupling Shielding for Depicting the Defect Landscape in Perovskite Solar Cells by Capacitance Spectroscopy

Abstract

Abstract Capacitance spectroscopy techniques have been widely utilized to evaluate the defect properties in perovskites, which contribute to the efficiency and operation stability development for perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Yet the interplay between the charge transporting layer (CTL) and the perovskite on the capacitance spectroscopy results is still unclear. Here, they show that a pseudo‐trap‐state capacitance signal is generated in thermal admittance spectroscopy (TAS) due to the enhanced resistance capacitance (RC) coupling caused by the carrier freeze‐out of the CTL in PSCs, which could be discerned from the actual defect‐induced trap state capacitance signal by tuning the series resistance of PSCs. By eliminating the RC coupling shielding effect on the defect‐induced capacitance spectroscopy, it is obtain the actual defect density which is 4‐folds lower than the pseudo‐trap density, and the spatial distribution of defects in PSCs which reveals that the commonly adopted interface passivators can passivate the defects about 60 nm away from the decorated surface. It is further revealed that phenethylammonium ions (PEA+) possess a better passivation capability over octylammonium ions (OA+) due to the deeper passivation depth for PEA+ on the surface defects in perovskite films.

Keywords

• defects
• perovskite solar cells
• thermal admittance spectroscopy
• trap states