A Fundamental Review of Trends in Perovskite Solar Cells Based on Introduction of Buffer Layers to Enhance Stability

Abstract

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs), as photo-electric conversion devices, exhibit adequate power conversion efficiency (PCE) and low processing cost and have thus become one of the most promising devices to replace conventional silicon-based solar cells thereby addressing current prevailing energy issues. Despite rapid progress in the perovskite solar cell efficiency, there have been concerns about issues which could affect the measurement accuracy and/or practical applications of these devices, amongst which are stability, scaling up (large area devices), and possible environmental effects related to the use of lead-based active material. Current PSCs use nonbiodegradable petroleum-based polymer substrates, discarding of which will aggravate environmental pollution. In this study, a review of the fundamentals and progress in the perovskite solar cell (PSC) is discussed. The processing cost of metal electrode deposition in PSC is very costly, hence, the replacement of the metal electrode by some other low-cost counter electrode is discussed.