Analytical Study of Solution-Processed Tin Oxide as Electron Transport Layer in Printed Perovskite Solar Cells

Solution-processed tin oxide (SnOx) electron transport layers demonstrate excellent performance in various optoelectronic devices and offer the ease of facile and low cost deposition by various printing techniques. The most common precursor solution for the preparation of SnOx thin films is SnCl2 dissolved in ethanol. In order to elucidate the mechanism of the precursor conversion at different annealing temperatures and the optoelectronic performance of the SnOx electron transport layer, phonon and vibrational infrared and photoelectron spectroscopies as well as atomic force microscopy are used to probe the chemical, physical, and morphological properties of the SnOx thin films. The influence of two different solvents on the layer morphology of SnOx thin films is investigated. In both cases, an increasing annealing temperature not only improves the structural and chemical properties of solution-processed SnOx, but also reduces the concentration of tin hydroxide species in the bulk and on the surface of these thin films. As a prototypical example for the high potential of printed SnOx layers for solar cells, high performance perovskite solar cells with a stabilized power conversion efficiency of over 15% are presented.