Anti-solvent surface engineering via diethyl ether to enhance the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells to 18.76%

A quick and repeatable fabrication of compact CH3NH3PbI3 film was achieved by the anti-solvent method which consists of the one-step deposition to the CH3NH3PbI3 film and quickly exposition to the anti-solvent of diethyl ether. The morphology, crystalline quality and properties of the CH3NH3PbI3 film were found to be extraordinary influenced by the adding amount of diethyl ether. Accordingly, the native relationship between the crystal quality of perovskite films and solar cells was revealed. The CH3NH3PbI3 film by adding optimized 600 μL diethyl ether delivered the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.76% and average PCE of 18.41% with remarkable reproducibility. These results provide an approach to fabricate the high-quality perovskite film and encourage the researchers to further improve the PCE of perovskite solar cells from the aspect of the fabrication process.