The effect of external electric field on the performance of perovskite solar cells

•Planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells were successfully fabricated through a low-temperature solution process.•The performance of perovskite solar cells was found to strongly depend on the external bias treatment.•Ions motion under the external bias was considered to be the potential reason for the dependence of external bias.

Planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells were fabricated through a low temperature approach. We find that the device performance significantly depends on the external bias before and during measurements. By appropriate optimization of the bias conditions, we could achieve an 8-fold increase in the power conversion efficiency. The significant improvement in device performance might be caused by the ion motion in the perovskite under the external electric field.

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