Regulation of the Buried Interface to Achieve Efficient HTL-Free All-Inorganic CsPbI₂Br-Based Perovskite Solar Cells

The large voltage loss (<i>V</i>_loss) mainly stems from the mismatch between the perovskite film and electron transport layer in CsPbI₂Br-based all-inorganic perovskite solar cells (I-PSCs), which restricts the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of devices. To address this issue, potassium benzoate (BAP) is first introduced as a bifunctional passivation material to regulate the TiO₂/CsPbI₂Br interface, reduce the <i>V</i>_loss, and improve the photovoltaic performance of CsPbI₂Br-based I-PSCs. Eventually, the champion PCE of CsPbI₂Br-based I-PSCs without a hole transport layer modified by BAP (Target-PSCs) improves to 14.90% from the 12.14% of reference PSCs. The open-circuit voltage (<i>V</i>_oc) increases to 1.27 V from the initial 1.14 V after BAP modification. A series of characterizations show that BAP modification can not only optimize the energy level alignment of I-PSCs but also passivize the surface defects caused by uncoordinated Cs⁺/Pb²⁺. Moreover, the Target-PSCs without encapsulation demonstrate better thermal stability, which can maintain 107.6% of the original PCE after annealing at 160 °C for 140 min in humid air. While the reference PSCs only maintain 76.5% of their initial PCE after annealing at the same process. This work provides a simple strategy to modify the buried interface and improve the performance of CsPbI₂Br-based I-PSCs.