High Throughput Exploration of Novel Perovskite-Inspired Materials Using Combinatorial Inkjet Printing

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have since 2012 attracted considerable attention, which can be attributed to the facile synthesis and thin film deposition, as well as to high power conversion efficiencies. However, there are two major challenges that currently hinder the commercialization of PSCs, and therefore need to be addressed; poor stability and the presence of toxic lead. Perovskites have a large structural and compositional space and research during the last decade has resulted in several new perovskite and perovskite-related materials with suitable properties for utilization as energy materials.¹ This, in turn, has further expanded the chemical and structural space of potentially interesting perovskite-inspired materials, which requires the use of suitable, scalable, high-throughput methods for the discovery of new candidate materials. This is crucial in order to swiftly identify new materials for energy applications to accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable economy. The time-consuming materials discovery process combined with the historically long implementation time of new photovoltaic technologies² is, as of today, limiting the possibility to speed up this important transition. Inkjet printing is a scalable fabrication technique that has been proven valuable for the deposition of perovskites as large area modules. Furthermore, inkjet printing has been demonstrated as a potentially interesting tool for combinatorial, high-throughput, deposition of numerous perovskite compositions with potential for solar cell application.³ In this work, the use of combinatorial inkjet printing to screen a large compositional space of novel perovskite and perovskite-inspired materials for optoelectronic devices is presented. We developed direct and high-throughput analysis strategies to evaluate the performance potential of these materials in operando.<br/><br/><br/>[1] A. Starkholm, L. Kloo, P. H. Svensson, <i>J. Am. Chem. Soc</i>. <b>2020</b>, <i>142</i>, 18437-18448.<br/>[2] R. Grossa, R. Hannaa, A. Gambhirb, P. Heptonstalla, J. Speirs, <i>Energy Policy</i>, <b>2018</b>, <i>123</i>, 682–699.<br/>[3] H. Näsström, O. Shargaieva, P. Becker, F. Mathies, I. Zizak, V. R. F. Schröder, E. J. W. List-Kratochvil, T. Unold, E. Unger, <i>J. Mater. </i><i>Chem. A,</i> <b>2022</b>, <i>10</i>, 4906– 4914.