Fabrication of efficient planar perovskite solar cells using a one-step chemical vapor deposition method

Organometallic trihalide perovskites are promising materials for photovoltaic applications, which have demonstrated a rapid rise in photovoltaic performance in a short period of time. We report a facile one-step method to fabricate planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), with a solar power conversion efficiency of up to 11.1%. We performed a systematic optimization of CVD parameters such as temperature and growth time to obtain high quality films of CH3NH3PbI3 and CH3NH3PbI(3-x)Clx perovskite. Scanning electron microscopy and time resolved photoluminescence data showed that the perovskite films have a large grain size of more than 1 micrometer, and carrier life-times of 10 ns and 120 ns for CH3NH3PbI3 and CH3NH3PbI(3-x)Clx, respectively. This is the first demonstration of a highly efficient perovskite solar cell using one step CVD and there is likely room for significant improvement of device efficiency.