Enhanced Performance and Flexibility of Perovskite Solar Cells Based on Microstructured Multilayer Transparent Electrodes

The performance and flexibility of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been enhanced by introducing microstructured WO3/Ag/WO3 (WAW) multilayer transparent electrodes, which can be fabricated through glancing angle deposition (GLAD) method. The structure and morphology of the second WO3 layers in WAW films can be altered significantly by changing the deposition angles. A film with porous, oriented WO3 nanocolumns was obtained at the deposition angle of 75°. The rigid and flexible devices based on this microstructured electrodes show enhanced power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 14.91 and 13.79%, respectively, which are increasing by 10.36 and 10.14% in comparison with the devices based on the WAW electrodes with planar structure, respectively. Simultaneously, the bending stability of the flexible PSCs based on the microstructured WAW electrode has been improved significantly, which retains 90.97% of its initial PCE after 1000 times bending under the maximum strain of 1.3%, compared with the 78.39% of the reference device with the planar WAW electrode. This can be attributed to the unique microstructure of WAW electrodes fabricated by GLAD methods, releasing the mechanical stresses under repeated bending; moreover, the smaller grains induced by this electrode can disperse the stress, which decrease the damage on the perovskite layer; we believe that this work will pave for the way to improve the performance and flexibility of PSCs.