Chloride Inclusion and Hole Transport Material Doping to Improve Methyl Ammonium Lead Bromide Perovskite-Based High Open-Circuit Voltage Solar Cells

Low-cost solar cells with high VOC, relatively small (EG - qVOC), and high qVOC/EG ratio, where EG is the absorber band gap, are long sought after, especially for use in tandem cells or other systems with spectral splitting. We report a significant improvement in CH3NH3PbBr3-based cells, using CH3NH3PbBr3-xClx, with EG = 2.3 eV, as the absorber in a mesoporous p-i-n device configuration. By p-doping an organic hole transport material with a deep HOMO level and wide band gap to reduce recombination, the cell's VOC increased to 1.5 V, a 0.2 V increase from our earlier results with the pristine Br analogue with an identical band gap. At the same time, in the most efficient devices, the current density increased from ∼1 to ∼4 mA/cm(2).