Pentacene as a hole transport material for high performance planar perovskite solar cells

Abstract A cost-effective and efficient organic semiconductor pentacene was developed as a hole transport layer (HTL) material to replace classical PEDOT:PSS for planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs). As expected, the pentacene based device exhibits power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.90% (Jsc of 19.44 mA/cm2, Voc of 1.07 V, and FF of 77%), comparable to the PEDOT:PSS based device (PCE of 15.65%, Jsc of 18.78 mA/cm2, Voc of 1.07 V, and FF of 77%) under the same experimental conditions. The excellent performance of vacuum deposited pentacene is mainly attributed to the high efficient charge extraction and transfer in device due to the high-quality perovskite film grown on the top of pentacene substrate and a favorable energy-level alignment together with a desired downward band bending formed at the perovskite/pentacene interface. Our research has confirmed that pentacene could be served as a promising HTL material to achieve effective and potentially economical planar type PSCs.