Fabrication of Perovskite Films with Large Columnar Grains via Solvent-Mediated Ostwald Ripening for Efficient Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells

Generally, residual solvent is embedded in perovskite precursor films fabricated from the Lewis adduct method. Most of the research focus on the ligand function of the solvent in forming a solvate complex for fabricating high quality perovskite films. However, little attention has been paid to the latent function of the solvent in the perovskite precursor films during the annealing process due to its fast extravasation at high temperature. Here, we develop a sandwich configuration of substrate/perovskite precursor films/PC 61 BM to retard the extravasation of solvent during annealing. We find that the restrained solvent induces an obvious solvent-mediated dissolution–recrystallization process, leading to high quality perovskite films with large columnar grains. There is mass transportation from small grains to large grains in the dissolution–recrystallization process, which follows the Ostwald ripening model. Inverted planar solar cells are fabricated on the basis of this annealing method. The photovoltaic performance of the solar cells is improved significantly due to its high quality perovskite films with large columnar grains.