Natural Antioxidant Vitamin C Improves Photovoltaic Performance of Tin-Lead Mixed Perovskite Solar Cells

The oxidation of Sn²⁺ can occur even after the completion of the perovskite crystallization in a low oxygen environment. Concerning this, the natural antioxidant vitamin C (VC) is introduced to the surface of Sn-Pb mixed perovskite using a postprocessing method to achieve the purpose of inhibiting Sn²⁺ oxidation and enhancing perovskite solar cells performance. The results indicate that the VC could effectively inhibit Sn²⁺ oxidation and heal the vacancy defects of the annealed perovskite film. Meanwhile, the introduction of VC significantly improves the morphology and crystalline quality of the perovskite films. After optimization, the highest power conversion efficiency of the VC-treated Sn-Pb mixed device increased to 20.44%. Moreover, the VC-treated unencapsulated device shows excellent long-term stability, retaining 75.3% of its initial efficiency after 800 h of aging in a N₂ atmosphere, which is much higher than the 20.1% of the control device. © 2024 American Chemical Society.