Coral-like perovskite nanostructures for enhanced light-harvesting and accelerated charge extraction in perovskite solar cells

A novel coral-like perovskite nanostructured layer was grown on a compact perovskite foundation layer by the facile surface modification with dimethylformamide/isopropanol (DMF/IPA) as co-solvent. Surface morphological characterizations with SEM and XRD analyses revealed a growing mechanism of the new morphology, which was composed of the perovskite decomposition and recrystallization, excessive-PbI2 extraction, and sequential formation of coral-like nanostructured perovskite layer. The coral-like perovskite nanostructures resulted in significant light scattering, enhancing the light-harvesting efficiency, and thus augmenting the photocurrent density. Moreover, the geometric configuration of the perovksite solar cells was changed from planar to bulk heterojunction, which results in the acceleration of charge separation and extraction due to the high surface area at the interface between the obtained perovskite and hole-transport layers. The optimal perovskite solar cell exhibited an impressive power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.47%, as compared to that of the pristine cell (17.19%).