Synergistic combination of semiconductor quantum dots and organic-inorganic halide perovskites for hybrid solar cells

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and organic-inorganic halide perovskites have emerged as two important families of excellent photovoltaic materials and contributed to the rapid progress in photovoltaic field during the past decade. This review seeks to provide an insight into an advanced concept on the synergistic combination of QDs and perovskites, which affords a number of exciting synergies for the further advancements in hybrid solar cells, including growth promotion of perovskite crystals, complementary light harvesting, rapid extraction of charge carriers, efficient carrier transport, surface and interface engineering, and improved stability. The emphasis is placed on the most widely studied system of PbS and CH3NH3PbI3, which enables the heteroepitaxial growth of perovskites on QDs. Issues related to fundamental physical and chemical features, lattice coherence, materials and films processing, and energy transfer between QDs and perovskites, as well as advances in device architecture and photovoltaic performance are discussed. In addition, prospects overriding current challenges are also proposed for future work toward practical realization of highly efficient and stable hybrid solar cells.