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We introduce an optical illusion method by transforming the object light into a designed illusion image with a spatial light modulator and a scattering medium. Both theoretical and experimental results show the method to be robust and easy-to-use. © 2018 OSA.

We introduce an optical illusion method by transforming the object light into a designed illusion image with a spatial light modulator and a scattering medium. Both theoretical and experimental results show the method to be robust and easy-to-use. © 2018 OSA.

We introduce an optical illusion method by transforming the object light into a designed illusion image with a spatial light modulator and a scattering medium. Both theoretical and experimental results show the method to be robust and easy-to-use. © 2018 OSA.

We introduce an optical illusion method by transforming the object light into a designed illusion image with a spatial light modulator and a scattering medium. Both theoretical and experimental results show the method to be robust and easy-to-use. © OSA 2018

We introduce an optical illusion method by transforming the object light into a designed illusion image with a spatial light modulator and a scattering medium. Both theoretical and experimental results show the method to be robust and easy-to-use. © OSA 2018

We introduce an optical illusion method by transforming the object light into a designed illusion image with a spatial light modulator and a scattering medium. Both theoretical and experimental results show the method to be robust and easy-to-use. © OSA 2018

A new chiral tetraphenylethene derivative with two L-leucine-containing attachments, TPE-DLEU, has been designed and synthesized by Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition “click” reaction. It emits faintly and gives weak circular dichroism (CD) signals in solutions, but shows strong fluorescence and Cotton effects in the aggregated state, showing aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and CD (AICD) characteristics. Furthermore, its film displays circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with an emission dissymmetry factor of +3.2 × 10−3. Interestingly, TPE-DLEU exhibits controllable helical self-assembly behaviours. It could readily assemble into right-handed helical nanofibers upon the evaporation of its 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) solution, but form left-handed helical nanofibers by the addition of hexane to its DCE solution. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

A new chiral tetraphenylethene derivative with two L-leucine-containing attachments, TPE-DLEU, has been designed and synthesized by Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition “click” reaction. It emits faintly and gives weak circular dichroism (CD) signals in solutions, but shows strong fluorescence and Cotton effects in the aggregated state, showing aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and CD (AICD) characteristics. Furthermore, its film displays circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with an emission dissymmetry factor of +3.2 × 10−3. Interestingly, TPE-DLEU exhibits controllable helical self-assembly behaviours. It could readily assemble into right-handed helical nanofibers upon the evaporation of its 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) solution, but form left-handed helical nanofibers by the addition of hexane to its DCE solution. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

A new chiral tetraphenylethene derivative with two L-leucine-containing attachments, TPE-DLEU, has been designed and synthesized by Cu(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition “click” reaction. It emits faintly and gives weak circular dichroism (CD) signals in solutions, but shows strong fluorescence and Cotton effects in the aggregated state, showing aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and CD (AICD) characteristics. Furthermore, its film displays circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with an emission dissymmetry factor of +3.2 × 10−3. Interestingly, TPE-DLEU exhibits controllable helical self-assembly behaviours. It could readily assemble into right-handed helical nanofibers upon the evaporation of its 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) solution, but form left-handed helical nanofibers by the addition of hexane to its DCE solution. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

A series of newly synthesized dicyanoplatinum(II) 2,2’-bipyridine complexes exhibits self-assembly properties in solution after the incorporation of the l-valine amino units appended with various hydrophobic motifs. These l-valine-derived substituents were found to have critical control over the aggregation behaviors of the complexes in the solution state. On one hand, one of the complexes was found to exhibit interesting circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) signals at low temperature due to the formation of chiral spherical aggregates in the temperature-dependent studies. On the other hand, systematic transformation from less uniform aggregates to well-defined fibrous and rod-like structures via Pt⋅⋅⋅Pt and π–π stacking interactions has also been observed in the mixed-solvent studies. These changes were monitored by UV/Vis absorption, emission, circular dichroism (CD), and CPL spectroscopies, and morphologies were studied by electron microscopy. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

A reflective photoluminescent liquid crystal (LC) display device that can work under both sunlight and UV light irradiation is reported. This device is based on photoluminescent chiral nematic liquid crystals that combine selective reflection and circularly polarized luminescence. The reflective luminescent LC display provides promising prospects for future energy-saving displays under different lighting conditions.

In this work, we have designed a mesoporous TiO2 nanobowl (NB) array with pore size, bowl size and film thickness being easily controllable by the sol-gel process and the polystyrene (PS) template diameter. Based on the TiO2 NB array, we fabricated carbon cathode based perovskite solar cells (C-PSCs) to investigate the impact of TiO2 NB nanostructures on the performance of the as-obtained C-PSCs devices. As expected, the TiO2 NB based devices show a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) than that of the planar counterpart, mainly due to the enhanced light absorption arising from the NB-assisted light management, the improved pore-filling of high quality perovskite crystals and the increased interface contact for rapid electron extraction and fast charge transport. Leveraging these advantages of the novel TiO2 NB film, the 220 nm-PS templated TiO2 NB based devices performed the best on both light absorption capability and charge extraction, and achieved a PCE up to 12.02% with good stability, which is 37% higher than that of the planar counterpart. These results point to a viable and convenient route toward the fabrication of TiO2 ETL nanostructures for high performance PSCs. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.

Wavefront shaping applied on scattering light is a promising optical imaging method in biological systems. Normally, optimized modulation can be obtained by a Liquid-Crystal Spatial Light Modulator (LC-SLM) and CCD hardware iteration. Here we introduce an improved method for this optimization process. The core of the proposed method is to firstly detect the disturbed wavefront, and then to calculate the modulation phase pattern by computer simulation. In particular, phase retrieval method together with phase conjugation is most effective. In this way, the LC-SLM based system can complete the wavefront optimization and imaging restoration within several seconds which is two orders of magnitude faster than the conventional technique. The experimental results show good imaging quality and may contribute to real time imaging recovery in scattering medium. © 2016 SPIE.

Recently, researchers have focused on the design of highly efficient flexible perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), which enables the implementation of portable and roll -to -roll fabrication in large scale. While NiOx is a promising material for hole transport layer (HTL) candidate for fabricating efficient PVSCs on a rigid substrate, the reported NiOx HTLs are formed using different multistep treatments (such as 300-500 degrees C annealing, O-2-plasma, UVO, etc.), which hinders the development of flexible PVSCs based on NiOx. Meanwhile, the "features of nano structured morphology and flawless film quality are very important for the film to function as highly effective HTL of PVSCs. However, it is difficult to have the two features coexist natively, particularly in a solution process that flawless film will usually come with smooth morphology. Here, we demonstrate the flawless and surface-nanostructured NiOx film from a simple and controllable room -temperature solution process for achieving high performance flexible PVSCs with good stability and reproducibility. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) can reaches a promising value of 14.53% with no obvious hysteresis (and a high PCE of 17.60% for PVSC on ITO glass). Furthermore, the NiOx-based PVSCs show markedly improved air stability. Regarding the performance improvement, the flawless and surface-nanostructured NiOx film can make the interfacial recombination and monomolecular Shockley Read Hall recombination of PVSC reduce. hi addition, the formation of an intimate junction of large interfacial area at NiOx film/the perovskite layer improve the hole extraction and thus PVSC performances. This work contributes to the evolution of flexible PVSCs with simple fabrication process and high device performances.

Carbon-based hole transport material (HTM)-free perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown much promise for practical applications because of their high stability and low cost. However, the efficiencies of this kind of PSCs are still relatively low, especially for the simplest paintable carbon-based PSCs, in comparison with the organic HTM-based PSCs. This can be imputed to the perovskite deposition methods that are not very suitable for this kind of devices. A solvent engineering strategy based on two-step sequential method is exploited to prepare a high-quality perovskite layer for the paintable carbon-based PSCs in which the solvent for CH3NH3I (MAI) solution at the second step is changed from isopropanol (IPA) to a mixed solvent of IPA/Cyclohexane (CYHEX). This mixed solvent not only accelerates the conversion of Pbl(2) to CH(3)NH(3)Pbl(3) but also suppresses the Ostwald ripening process resulting in a high-quality perovskite layer, e.g., pure phase, even surface, and compact capping layer. The paintable carbon-based PSCs fabricated from IPA/CYHEX solvent exhibits a considerable enhancement in photovoltaic performance and performance reproducibility in comparison with that from pure IPA, especially on fill factor (FF), owing mainly to the better contact of perovskite/carbon interface, lower trap density in perovskite, higher light absorption ability, and faster charge transport of perovskite layer. As a result, the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.38% is obtained, which is a record value for carbon-based HTM-free PSCs. Furthermore, a PCE of as high as 10% is achieved for the large area device (1 cm(2)), also the highest of its kind.

A polymer/PCBM hybrid electron transport layer is reported that enables high-performance perovskite solar cells with a high power conversion efficiency of 16.2% and with negligible hysteresis. Unlike previous approaches of reducing hysteresis by thermal annealing or fullerene passivation, the success of our approach can be mainly attributed to the doping of the PCBM layer using an insulating polymer (polystyrene) and an amine-containing polymeric semiconductor named PFNOX.

Wavefront shaping applied on scattering light is an efficient method for imaging through thin scattering layers. Normally, optimized modulation can be obtained by a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (LCSLM) and CCD hardware iteration. In this paper, an improved method for such an optimization process is introduced. The core of the proposed method is to firstly detect the disturbed wavefront, and then to calculate the modulation phase pattern by computer simulation. Fast processing speed resulting in high quality images have been achieved with this new approach. Using supposition of conjugated phase of the scattering wavefront and a Fresnel phase scheme, more than two orders of magnitude improvement in processing speed for imaging restoration was shown compared to the LCSLM-CCD iteration method.

In this work, we have designed a mesoporous TiO2 nanobowl (NB) array with pore size, bowl size and film thickness being easily controllable by the sol-gel process and the polystyrene (PS) template diameter. Based on the TiO2 NB array, we fabricated carbon cathode based perovskite solar cells (C-PSCs) to investigate the impact of TiO2 NB nanostructures on the performance of the as-obtained C-PSCs devices. As expected, the TiO2 NB based devices show a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) than that of the planar counterpart, mainly due to the enhanced light absorption arising from the NB-assisted light management, the improved pore-filling of high quality perovskite crystals and the increased interface contact for rapid electron extraction and fast charge transport. Leveraging these advantages of the novel TiO2 NB film, the 220 nm-PS templated TiO2 NB based devices performed the best on both light absorption capability and charge extraction, and achieved a PCE up to 12.02% with good stability, which is 37% higher than that of the planar counterpart. These results point to a viable and convenient route toward the fabrication of TiO2 ETL nanostructures for high performance PSCs. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.

A reflective photoluminescent liquid crystal (LC) display device that can work under both sunlight and UV light irradiation is reported. This device is based on photoluminescent chiral nematic liquid crystals that combine selective reflection and circularly polarized luminescence. The reflective luminescent LC display provides promising prospects for future energy-saving displays under different lighting conditions.

Carbon-based hole transport material (HTM)-free perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown much promise for practical applications because of their high stability and low cost. However, the efficiencies of this kind of PSCs are still relatively low, especially for the simplest paintable carbon-based PSCs, in comparison with the organic HTM-based PSCs. This can be imputed to the perovskite deposition methods that are not very suitable for this kind of devices. A solvent engineering strategy based on two-step sequential method is exploited to prepare a high-quality perovskite layer for the paintable carbon-based PSCs in which the solvent for CH3NH3I (MAI) solution at the second step is changed from isopropanol (IPA) to a mixed solvent of IPA/Cyclohexane (CYHEX). This mixed solvent not only accelerates the conversion of Pbl(2) to CH(3)NH(3)Pbl(3) but also suppresses the Ostwald ripening process resulting in a high-quality perovskite layer, e.g., pure phase, even surface, and compact capping layer. The paintable carbon-based PSCs fabricated from IPA/CYHEX solvent exhibits a considerable enhancement in photovoltaic performance and performance reproducibility in comparison with that from pure IPA, especially on fill factor (FF), owing mainly to the better contact of perovskite/carbon interface, lower trap density in perovskite, higher light absorption ability, and faster charge transport of perovskite layer. As a result, the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.38% is obtained, which is a record value for carbon-based HTM-free PSCs. Furthermore, a PCE of as high as 10% is achieved for the large area device (1 cm(2)), also the highest of its kind.

A polymer/PCBM hybrid electron transport layer is reported that enables high-performance perovskite solar cells with a high power conversion efficiency of 16.2% and with negligible hysteresis. Unlike previous approaches of reducing hysteresis by thermal annealing or fullerene passivation, the success of our approach can be mainly attributed to the doping of the PCBM layer using an insulating polymer (polystyrene) and an amine-containing polymeric semiconductor named PFNOX.

Recently, researchers have focused on the design of highly efficient flexible perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), which enables the implementation of portable and roll -to -roll fabrication in large scale. While NiOx is a promising material for hole transport layer (HTL) candidate for fabricating efficient PVSCs on a rigid substrate, the reported NiOx HTLs are formed using different multistep treatments (such as 300-500 degrees C annealing, O-2-plasma, UVO, etc.), which hinders the development of flexible PVSCs based on NiOx. Meanwhile, the "features of nano structured morphology and flawless film quality are very important for the film to function as highly effective HTL of PVSCs. However, it is difficult to have the two features coexist natively, particularly in a solution process that flawless film will usually come with smooth morphology. Here, we demonstrate the flawless and surface-nanostructured NiOx film from a simple and controllable room -temperature solution process for achieving high performance flexible PVSCs with good stability and reproducibility. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) can reaches a promising value of 14.53% with no obvious hysteresis (and a high PCE of 17.60% for PVSC on ITO glass). Furthermore, the NiOx-based PVSCs show markedly improved air stability. Regarding the performance improvement, the flawless and surface-nanostructured NiOx film can make the interfacial recombination and monomolecular Shockley Read Hall recombination of PVSC reduce. hi addition, the formation of an intimate junction of large interfacial area at NiOx film/the perovskite layer improve the hole extraction and thus PVSC performances. This work contributes to the evolution of flexible PVSCs with simple fabrication process and high device performances.

Wavefront shaping applied on scattering light is an efficient method for imaging through thin scattering layers. Normally, optimized modulation can be obtained by a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (LCSLM) and CCD hardware iteration. In this paper, an improved method for such an optimization process is introduced. The core of the proposed method is to firstly detect the disturbed wavefront, and then to calculate the modulation phase pattern by computer simulation. Fast processing speed resulting in high quality images have been achieved with this new approach. Using supposition of conjugated phase of the scattering wavefront and a Fresnel phase scheme, more than two orders of magnitude improvement in processing speed for imaging restoration was shown compared to the LCSLM-CCD iteration method.

Wavefront shaping applied on scattering light is a promising optical imaging method in biological systems. Normally, optimized modulation can be obtained by a Liquid-Crystal Spatial Light Modulator (LC-SLM) and CCD hardware iteration. Here we introduce an improved method for this optimization process. The core of the proposed method is to firstly detect the disturbed wavefront, and then to calculate the modulation phase pattern by computer simulation. In particular, phase retrieval method together with phase conjugation is most effective. In this way, the LC-SLM based system can complete the wavefront optimization and imaging restoration within several seconds which is two orders of magnitude faster than the conventional technique. The experimental results show good imaging quality and may contribute to real time imaging recovery in scattering medium. © 2016 SPIE.

Wavefront shaping applied on scattering light is a promising optical imaging method in biological systems. Normally, optimized modulation can be obtained by a Liquid-Crystal Spatial Light Modulator (LC-SLM) and CCD hardware iteration. Here we introduce an improved method for this optimization process. The core of the proposed method is to firstly detect the disturbed wavefront, and then to calculate the modulation phase pattern by computer simulation. In particular, phase retrieval method together with phase conjugation is most effective. In this way, the LC-SLM based system can complete the wavefront optimization and imaging restoration within several seconds which is two orders of magnitude faster than the conventional technique. The experimental results show good imaging quality and may contribute to real time imaging recovery in scattering medium.

In this work, we have designed a mesoporous TiO2 nanobowl (NB) array with pore size, bowl size and film thickness being easily controllable by the sol-gel process and the polystyrene (PS) template diameter. Based on the TiO2 NB array, we fabricated carbon cathode based perovskite solar cells (C-PSCs) to investigate the impact of TiO2 NB nanostructures on the performance of the as-obtained C-PSCs devices. As expected, the TiO2 NB based devices show a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) than that of the planar counterpart, mainly due to the enhanced light absorption arising from the NB-assisted light management, the improved pore-filling of high quality perovskite crystals and the increased interface contact for rapid electron extraction and fast charge transport. Leveraging these advantages of the novel TiO2 NB film, the 220 nm-PS templated TiO2 NB based devices performed the best on both light absorption capability and charge extraction, and achieved a PCE up to 12.02% with good stability, which is 37% higher than that of the planar counterpart. These results point to a viable and convenient route toward the fabrication of TiO2 ETL nanostructures for high performance PSCs. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2016.

A reflective photoluminescent liquid crystal (LC) display device that can work under both sunlight and UV light irradiation is reported. This device is based on photoluminescent chiral nematic liquid crystals that combine selective reflection and circularly polarized luminescence. The reflective luminescent LC display provides promising prospects for future energy-saving displays under different lighting conditions.

A polymer/PCBM hybrid electron transport layer is reported that enables high-performance perovskite solar cells with a high power conversion efficiency of 16.2% and with negligible hysteresis. Unlike previous approaches of reducing hysteresis by thermal annealing or fullerene passivation, the success of our approach can be mainly attributed to the doping of the PCBM layer using an insulating polymer (polystyrene) and an amine-containing polymeric semiconductor named PFNOX.

Carbon-based hole transport material (HTM)-free perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown much promise for practical applications because of their high stability and low cost. However, the efficiencies of this kind of PSCs are still relatively low, especially for the simplest paintable carbon-based PSCs, in comparison with the organic HTM-based PSCs. This can be imputed to the perovskite deposition methods that are not very suitable for this kind of devices. A solvent engineering strategy based on two-step sequential method is exploited to prepare a high-quality perovskite layer for the paintable carbon-based PSCs in which the solvent for CH3NH3I (MAI) solution at the second step is changed from isopropanol (IPA) to a mixed solvent of IPA/Cyclohexane (CYHEX). This mixed solvent not only accelerates the conversion of Pbl2 to CH3NH3Pbl3 but also suppresses the Ostwald ripening process resulting in a high-quality perovskite layer, e.g., pure phase, even surface, and compact capping layer. The paintable carbon-based PSCs fabricated from IPA/CYHEX solvent exhibits a considerable enhancement in photovoltaic performance and performance reproducibility in comparison with that from pure IPA, especially on fill factor (FF), owing mainly to the better contact of perovskite/carbon interface, lower trap density in perovskite, higher light absorption ability, and faster charge transport of perovskite layer. As a result, the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.38% is obtained, which is a record value for carbon-based HTM-free PSCs. Furthermore, a PCE of as high as 10% is achieved for the large area device (1 cm2), also the highest of its kind.

Wavefront shaping applied on scattering light is an efficient method for imaging through thin scattering layers. Normally, optimized modulation can be obtained by a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (LCSLM) and CCD hardware iteration. In this paper, an improved method for such an optimization process is introduced. The core of the proposed method is to firstly detect the disturbed wavefront, and then to calculate the modulation phase pattern by computer simulation. Fast processing speed resulting in high quality images have been achieved with this new approach. Using supposition of conjugated phase of the scattering wavefront and a Fresnel phase scheme, more than two orders of magnitude improvement in processing speed for imaging restoration was shown compared to the LCSLM-CCD iteration method.

Recently, researchers have focused on the design of highly efficient flexible perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), which enables the implementation of portable and roll-to-roll fabrication in large scale. While NiOx is a promising material for hole transport layer (HTL) candidate for fabricating efficient PVSCs on a rigid substrate, the reported NiOx HTLs are formed using different multistep treatments (such as 300–500 °C annealing, O2-plasma, UVO, etc.), which hinders the development of flexible PVSCs based on NiOx. Meanwhile, the features of nanostructured morphology and flawless film quality are very important for the film to function as highly effective HTL of PVSCs. However, it is difficult to have the two features coexist natively, particularly in a solution process that flawless film will usually come with smooth morphology. Here, we demonstrate the flawless and surface-nanostructured NiOx film from a simple and controllable room-temperature solution process for achieving high performance flexible PVSCs with good stability and reproducibility. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) can reaches a promising value of 14.53% with no obvious hysteresis (and a high PCE of 17.60% for PVSC on ITO glass). Furthermore, the NiOx-based PVSCs show markedly improved air stability. Regarding the performance improvement, the flawless and surface-nanostructured NiOx film can make the interfacial recombination and monomolecular Shockley–Read–Hall recombination of PVSC reduce. In addition, the formation of an intimate junction of large interfacial area at NiOx film/the perovskite layer improve the hole extraction and thus PVSC performances. This work contributes to the evolution of flexible PVSCs with simple fabrication process and high device performances.

The merits of high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and easy preparation make organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells one of the most promising solar devices. However, PCE is greatly dependent on the morphology of perovskite thin film. Here, we report a solid-gas reaction method to fabricate very smooth CH3NH3PbI3 thin film with high coverage. Through controlling the reaction rate between CH3NH3I and PbI2 by tuning the PbI2 substrate temperature and the evaporation rate of CH3NH3I, we obtain a CH3NH3PbI3 layer with roughness of 7.37 nm. Besides, no post-treatment annealing is needed after film formation using our approach. With about 250 nm perovskite active layer, the solar cells exhibit a PCE of 10.0% with little hysteresis.

The photovoltaic performance of perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) is extremely dependent on the morphology and crystallization of the perovskite film, which is affected by the deposition method. In this work, a new approach is demonstrated for forming the PbI2 nanostructure and the use of high CH3NH3I concentration which are adopted to form high-quality (smooth and PbI2 residue-free) perovskite film with better photovoltaic performances. On the one hand, self-assembled porous PbI2 is formed by incorporating small amount of rationally chosen additives into the PbI2 precursor solutions, which significantly facilitate the conversion of perovskite without any PbI2 residue. On the other hand, by employing a relatively high CH3NH3I concentration, a firmly crystallized and uniform CH3NH3PbI3 film is formed. As a result, a promising power conversion efficiency of 16.21% is achieved in planar-heterojunction PVSCs. Furthermore, it is experimentally demonstrated that the PbI2 residue in perovskite film has a negative effect on the long-term stability of devices.

The photovoltaic performance of perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) is extremely dependent on the morphology and crystallization of the perovskite film, which is affected by the deposition method. In this work, a new approach is demonstrated for forming the PbI2 nanostructure and the use of high CH3NH3I concentration which are adopted to form high-quality (smooth and PbI2 residue-free) perovskite film with better photovoltaic performances. On the one hand, self-assembled porous PbI2 is formed by incorporating small amount of rationally chosen additives into the PbI2 precursor solutions, which significantly facilitate the conversion of perovskite without any PbI2 residue. On the other hand, by employing a relatively high CH3NH3I concentration, a firmly crystallized and uniform CH3NH3PbI3 film is formed. As a result, a promising power conversion efficiency of 16.21% is achieved in planar-heterojunction PVSCs. Furthermore, it is experimentally demonstrated that the PbI2 residue in perovskite film has a negative effect on the long-term stability of devices.

The merits of high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and easy preparation make organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells one of the most promising solar devices. However, PCE is greatly dependent on the morphology of perovskite thin film. Here, we report a solid-gas reaction method to fabricate very smooth CH3NH3PbI3 thin film with high coverage. Through controlling the reaction rate between CH3NH3I and PbI2 by tuning the PbI2 substrate temperature and the evaporation rate of CH3NH3I, we obtain a CH3NH3PbI3 layer with roughness of 7.37 nm. Besides, no post-treatment annealing is needed after film formation using our approach. With about 250 nm perovskite active layer, the solar cells exhibit a PCE of 10.0% with little hysteresis.

The photovoltaic performance of perovskite solar cells (PVSCs) is extremely dependent on the morphology and crystallization of the perovskite film, which is affected by the deposition method. In this work, a new approach is demonstrated for forming the PbI2 nanostructure and the use of high CH3NH3I concentration which are adopted to form high-quality (smooth and PbI2 residue-free) perovskite film with better photovoltaic performances. On the one hand, self-assembled porous PbI2 is formed by incorporating small amount of rationally chosen additives into the PbI2 precursor solutions, which significantly facilitate the conversion of perovskite without any PbI2 residue. On the other hand, by employing a relatively high CH3NH3I concentration, a firmly crystallized and uniform CH3NH3PbI3 film is formed. As a result, a promising power conversion efficiency of 16.21% is achieved in planar-heterojunction PVSCs. Furthermore, it is experimentally demonstrated that the PbI2 residue in perovskite film has a negative effect on the long-term stability of devices.

The merits of high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and easy preparation make organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells one of the most promising solar devices. However, PCE is greatly dependent on the morphology of perovskite thin film. Here, we report a solid-gas reaction method to fabricate very smooth CH3NH3PbI3 thin film with high coverage. Through controlling the reaction rate between CH3NH3I and PbI2 by tuning the PbI2 substrate temperature and the evaporation rate of CH3NH3I, we obtain a CH3NH3PbI3 layer with roughness of 7.37 nm. Besides, no post-treatment annealing is needed after film formation using our approach. With about 250 nm perovskite active layer, the solar cells exhibit a PCE of 10.0% with little hysteresis.