Radiation Tolerance Testing and Materials Analysis of Perovskite Solar Cells Utilizing a Versatile Ion Beam Facility at the University of North Texas

Recently, several groups have shown that perovskites based solar cells show significant tolerance to proton radiation, however, perovskites also suffer from beam-induced damage in simple SEM characterization. Understanding the full extent of the various radiation-induced effects will greatly de-risk the perovskites for various non-terrestrial as well as terrestrial PV applications. Recently, we have performed several studies on the effects of proton and alpha irradiance at various fluences and energies, enabling the comprehensive assessment of the relative contribution of both nuclear and electron ionization losses in these materials. Using the stopping range of ions in matter simulations (SRIM) and damage displacement dose analysis in conjunction with targeted experimental irradiation energies and fluences we have developed a semi-empirical approach to evaluate the performance, radiation tolerance, and self-healing of solar cells. The correlation between the structural evolution of materials and device performance under irradiation can be estimated before the experiments by calculating the contributions to the total vacancies by the individual constituent elements.<br/>At the University of North Texas, Ion Beam Laboratory, we have two dedicated accelerator facilities providing proton beams of energies from a few tens of KeV to several MeV enabling targeted irradiation of various layers of the devices. We have also a novel and powerful set of integrated in-situ analytical techniques for defect characterization in PV devices along with simultaneously performing irradiation of targeted layers of the devices.<br/>In this presentation, we will provide updated results of these ion irradiation tolerance testing, radiation induced defect generation, as well as an in-situ elemental and charge collection analysis of the various layers of the perovskite-based solar cells.