Tin(IV) Oxide Electron Transport Layer via Industrial-Scale Pulsed Laser Deposition for Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

Electron transport layers (ETL) based on tin(IV) oxide(SnO2) are recurrently employed in perovskite solar cells(PSCs)by many deposition techniques. Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) offersa few advantages for the fabrication of such layers, such as beingcompatible with large scale, patternable, and allowing depositionat fast rates. However, a precise understanding of how the depositionparameters can affect the SnO2 film, and as a consequencethe solar cell performance, is needed. Herein, we use a PLD tool equippedwith a droplet trap to minimize the number of excess particles (originatedfrom debris) reaching the substrate, and we show how to control thePLD chamber pressure to obtain surfaces with very low roughness andhow the concentration of oxygen in the background gas can affect thenumber of oxygen vacancies in the film. Using optimized depositionconditions, we obtained solar cells in the n-i-p configurationemploying methyl-ammonium lead iodide perovskite as the absorberlayer with power conversion efficiencies exceeding 18% and identicalperformance to devices having the more typical atomic layer depositedSnO(2) ETL.