Elucidating Mechanisms behind Ambient Storage-Induced Efficiency Improvements in Perovskite Solar Cells

Initial improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE) during ambient storage is often seen in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In this work, we studied the origin of PCE enhancement by ambient storage on typical n-i-p PSCs. We found improvements in both fill factor and open-circuit voltage during the first 2 days of storage. By analyzing temperature and light intensity-dependent VOC, we found that the charge recombination mechanism changed from surface- to bulk-dominated because of defect passivation at the perovskite surface upon storage. In addition, we found that storage improves the conductivity and lowers the highest occupied molecular orbital level of the spiro-OMeTAD, improving charge extraction. These results show that there is more than one factor causing the storage-induced improvements in perovskite solar cells.