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Pristine fullerene C60 is an excellent electron transport material for state‐of‐the‐art inverted structure perovskite solar cells (PSCs), but its low solubility leaves thermal evaporation as the only method for depositing it into a high‐quality electron transport layer (ETL). To address this problem, we herein introduce a highly soluble bowl‐shaped additive, corannulene, to assist in C60‐assembly into a smooth and compact film through the favorable bowl‐ball interaction. Our results show that not only corannulene can dramatically enhance the film formability of C60, it also plays a critical role in forming C60‐corannulene (CC) supramolecular species and in boosting intermolecular electron transport dynamics in the ETL. This strategy has allowed CC devices to deliver high power conversion efficiencies up to 21.69 %, which is the highest value among the PSCs based on the solution‐processed‐C60 (SP‐C60) ETL. Moreover, the stability of the CC device is far superior to that of the C60‐only device because corannulene can retard and curb the spontaneous aggregation of C60. This work establishes the bowl‐assisted ball assembly strategy for developing low‐cost and efficient SP‐C60 ETLs with high promise for fully‐SP PSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tin halide perovskites are rising as promising materials for lead‐free perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, the crystallization rate of tin halide perovskites is much faster than the lead‐based analogs, leading to more rampant trap states and lower efficiency. Here, we disclose a key finding to modulate the crystallization kinetics of FASnI3 through a non‐classical nucleation mechanism based on pre‐nucleation clusters (PNCs). By introducing piperazine dihydriodide to tune the colloidal chemistry of the FASnI3 perovskite precursor solution, stable clusters could be readily formed in the solution before nucleation. These pre‐nucleation clusters act as intermediate phase and thus can reduce the energy barrier for the perovskite nucleation, resulting in a high‐quality perovskite film with lower defect density. This PNCs‐based method has led to a conspicuous photovoltaic performance improvement for FASnI3‐based PSCs, delivering an impressive efficiency of 11.39 % plus improved stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The BiVO4 photoelectrochemical (PEC) electrode in tandem with a photovoltaic (PV) cell has shown great potential to become a compact and cost‐efficient device for solar hydrogen generation. However, the PEC part is still facing problems such as the poor charge transport efficiency owing to the drag of oxygen vacancy bound polarons. In the present work, to effectively suppress oxygen vacancy formation, a new route has been developed to synthesize BiVO4 photoanodes by using a highly oxidative two‐dimensional (2D) precursor, bismuth oxyiodate (BiOIO3), as an internal oxidant. With the reduced defects, namely the oxygen vacancies, the bound polarons were released, enabling a fast charge transport inside BiVO4 and doubling the performance in tandem devices based on the oxygen vacancy eliminated BiVO4. This work is a new avenue for elaborately designing the precursor and breaking the limitation of charge transport for highly efficient PEC‐PV solar fuel devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A planar perovskite solar cell that incorporates a nanocarbon hole-extraction layer is demonstrated for the first time by an inkjet printing technique with a precisely controlled pattern and interface. By designing the carbon plus CH3NH3I ink to transform PbI2 in situ to CH3NH3PbI3, an interpenetrating seamless interface between the CH3NH3PbI3 active layer and the carbon hole-extraction electrode was instantly constructed, with a markedly reduced charge recombination compared to that with the carbon ink alone. As a result, a considerably higher power conversion efficiency up to 11.60 % was delivered by the corresponding solar cell. This method provides a major step towards the fabrication of low-cost, large-scale, metal-electrode-free but still highly efficient perovskite solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]