Reduction of oxygen vacancy and enhanced efficiency of perovskite solar cell by doping fluorine into TiO2

•F-doped TiO2 is synthesized and applied as a mesoporous layer for PSC.•The oxygen vacancy in TiO2 is greatly reduced by fluorine doping.•Efficiency of PSC boosts by 40% as the application of F-doped TiO2.•It presents a new effective way to improve PSC efficiency.

F-doped anatase TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by a hydrothermal method using hydrogen titanate nanotubes as a precursor and applied as a mesoporous layer for preparing perovskite solar cell. Comparing with undoped TiO2, fluorine doping can greatly reduce the oxygen vacancy in TiO2, characterized by XRD, FT-IR, SEM, TEM, XPS, and EPR. As a result, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cell boosts by 40% since the properties of the charge transferring ability has significantly been improved. It demonstrates that a new type of modification of TiO2, by non-metal doping through a hydrothermal route, can result in high efficient performances of perovskite solar cell.