Improved Efficiency and Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells Using the Multifunctional Additive Au Clusters

The great potential of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) remains to be further exploited via the improvement of their incomplete photon absorption and the reduction of abundant defects in perovskite. Here, we added Au clusters with 3-methylbenzenethiol (m-MBT) as ligands in perovskite to investigate the effect of surface plasmons on the light absorption of the perovskite layer and the passivation of m-MBT on the defects for perovskite. The results show that the addition of Au clusters not only effectively enhances the light absorption ability of perovskite but also effectively passivates the defects and suppresses the charge recombination. Meanwhile, we discuss the effect of doped Au clusters on the performance of PSCs. The power conversion efficiency of Au cluster-optimized PSCs was greatly improved to 20.6% from 18.8% for the control PSCs. In addition, due to the reduction of defects in perovskite, the stability of the improved PSCs is also greatly improved.