TiO_2 composite electron transport layers for planar perovskite solar cells by mixed spray pyrolysis with precursor solution incorporating TiO_2 nanoparticles

Perovskite solar cells with planar structure are attractive for their simplified device structure and reduced hysteresis effect. Compared to conventional mesoporous devices, TiO_2 porous scaffold layers are removed in planar devices. Then,compact TiO_2 electron transport layers take the functions of extracting electrons, transporting electrons, and blocking holes.Therefore, the properties of these compact TiO_2 layers are important for the performance of solar cells. In this work, we develop a mixed spray pyrolysis method for producing compact TiO_2 layers by incorporating TiO_2 nanoparticles with different size into the precursor solutions. For the optimized nanoparticle size of 60 nm, a power conversion efficiency of 16.7% is achieved, which is obviously higher than that of devices without incorporated nanoparticles(9.9%). Further investigation reveals that the incorporation of nanoparticles can remarkably improve the charge extraction and recombination processes.