Reactive-Sputtered Prepared Tin Oxide Thin Film as an Electron Transport Layer for Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract

Currently, tin oxide (SnO2) is a highly sought-after semiconductor material used in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) because of its good transmittance, the appropriate energy level, high electron mobility, high conductivity, ideal band gap and excellent chemical stability. In this study, SnO2 film was successfully prepared by radio frequency reactive magnetron sputtering (RS) under room temperature conditions. The obtained SnO2 thin films not only exhibited high transmittance in the visible region as well as the pure phase, but also had a suitable energy band structure and lower surface roughness than FTO (SnO2:F) glass substrate, which contributes to the improvement of the adjacent interface morphology. The SnO2 films prepared by reactive sputtering could effectively suppress carrier recombination and act as an electron transport layer. Moreover, the maximum efficiency of the device based on reactive sputtering of SnO2 as the electron transport layer (ETL) for planar perovskite solar cells (PSCs) was 14.63%. This study mainly described the preparation of SnO2 by reactive sputtering under room temperature conditions.