High-Efficiency Aqueous-Processed Polymer/CdTe Nanocrystals Planar Heterojunction Solar Cells with Optimized Band Alignment and Reduced Interfacial Charge Recombination

Aqueous-processed nanocrystal solar cells have attracted increasing attention due to the advantage of its environmentally friendly nature, which provides a promising approach for large-scale production. The urgent affair is boosting the power conversion efficiency (PCE) for further commercial applications. The low PCE is mainly attributed to the imperfect device structure, which leads to abundant nonradiative recombination at the interfaces. In this work, an environmentally friendly and efficient method is developed to improve the performance of aqueous-processed CdTe nanocrystal solar cells. Polymer/CdTe planar heterojunction solar cells (PHSCs) with optimized band alignment are constructed, which results in reduced interfacial charge recombination, enhanced carrier collection efficiency and built-in field. Finally, a champion PCE of 5.9%, which is a record for aqueous-processed solar cells based on CdTe nanocrystals, is achieved after optimizing the photovoltaic device.