Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2018

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M. Eng.

Department

Chemical Engineering

Committee Chair

Watters, James

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Druffel, Thad

Committee Member

Druffel, Thad

Committee Member

Gupta, Gautam

Author's Keywords

Solar; Perovskite; Hole Transport Layer; Reactive Lamination; Solar Power; Solar Materials

Abstract

Due to the growing demand for energy internationally and the environmental impact of other conventional energy technologies, solar power has been a growing area in the energy landscape. Perovskite research has increased substantially because of the high power conversion efficiencies, up to 22%, with many recent advances in the use of these organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites for photovoltaic cells. However, to bring perovskite solar cells into the industrial world, the overall cost of the manufacturing of the solar cell must be improved to compete with other well-developed photovoltaic technologies. Here is presented an alternative perovskite deposition method for methylammonium lead halide perovskite films that utilizes both two-step liquid phase and gas phase deposition techniques in a reactive lamination method developed by the writer. This new deposition process, while not relying on the use of a vacuum, can allow for the use of transition metal oxides as the hole transport layer, as well as the respective transition metal for the metal contact, which in turn can reduce the overall production cost of the perovskite solar cell. The deposited films were able to achieve highly uniform perovskite crystal formation based on SEM analyses, with around a 90% conversion of the lead iodide to perovskite. Using XRD scans, it was determined that the perovskite crystallization develops in an interesting pattern with a two-step crystallization with a reaction rate ranging from 0.002 and 0.003 mol/L*sec. The results of this study show that perovskite crystals can be developed by laminating two precursor substrates together.

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