Design and synthesis of dopant-free organic hole-transport materials for perovskite solar cells

Two novel dopant-free hole-transport materials (HTMs) with spiro[dibenzo[c,h]xanthene-7,9'-fluorene] (SDBXF) skeletons were prepared via facile synthesis routes. A power conversion efficiency of 15.9% in perovskite solar cells is attained by using one HTM without dopants, which is much higher than undoped Spiro-OMeTAD-based devices (10.8%). The crystal structures of both new HTMs were systematically investigated to reveal the reasons behind such differences in performance and to indicate the design principles of more advanced HTMs.