Radical Form of PbI₂: A New Defect Passivator for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

PbI2 is a commonly used passivator for defect passivation in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, the poor conductivity nature of PbI2 may limit the further improvement of device performance. Here, we report a radical form of PbI2 with high conductivity to passivate defects for efficient PSCs through a combination of N,N,N′,N′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB). When PbI2 is combined with TMB, 4 orders of magnitude higher conductivity will be achieved owing to the formation of a TMB-PbI2 radical. As a result, the device performance is impressively increased from 20.48 to 22.63%. In addition, the device stability is also greatly improved and 95% of the initial efficiency is retained after aging at 85 °C for 600 h.