Photonic nanostructures mimicking floral epidermis for perovskite solar cells

Maria Vasilopoulou; Wilson Jose da Silva; Anastasia Soultati; Hyeong Pil Kim; Byung Soon Kim; Youjin Reo; Anderson Emanuel Ximim Gavim; Julio Conforto; Fabio Kurt Schneider; Marciele Felippi; Leonidas C Palilis; Dimitris Davazoglou; Panagiotis Argitis; Thomas Stergiopoulos; Azhar Fakharuddin; Jin Jang; Nicola Gasparini; Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin; Yong-Young Noh; Abd Rashid Bin Mohd Yusoff

doi:10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.101019

Photonic nanostructures mimicking floral epidermis for perovskite solar cells

Cell Rep Phys Sci. 2022 Sep 21;3(9):101019. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.101019.

Authors

Maria Vasilopoulou¹, Wilson Jose da Silva², Anastasia Soultati¹, Hyeong Pil Kim³, Byung Soon Kim³, Youjin Reo⁴, Anderson Emanuel Ximim Gavim², Julio Conforto², Fabio Kurt Schneider², Marciele Felippi⁵, Leonidas C Palilis⁶, Dimitris Davazoglou¹, Panagiotis Argitis¹, Thomas Stergiopoulos¹, Azhar Fakharuddin⁷, Jin Jang³, Nicola Gasparini⁸, Mohammad Khaja Nazeeruddin⁹, Yong-Young Noh⁴, Abd Rashid Bin Mohd Yusoff⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (INN), National Center for Scientific Research (NCSR) "Demokritos", Agia Paraskevi, 15341 Attica, Greece.
² Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, GPGEI - Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165 - CEP, 80230-901 Curitiba, Parana, Brazil.
³ Advanced Display Research Center, Department of Information Display, Kyung Hee University, Dongdaemoon-gu, Seoul 130-701, South Korea.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Gyeongbuk 37673, Republic of Korea.
⁵ Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR), Departamento de Biologia, Campus Dois Vizinhos, Estrada Para Boa Esperança, Dois Vizinhos, 85660-000 Paraná, Brazil.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Patras, Rio, 26504 Patras, Greece.
⁷ Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany.
⁸ Department of Chemistry and Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London W120BZ, UK.
⁹ Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Rue de l'Industrie 17, 1951 Sion, Switzerland.

Abstract

Here, we report photonic nanostructures replicated from the adaxial epidermis of flower petals onto light-polymerized coatings using low-cost nanoimprint lithography at ambient temperature. These multifunctional nanocoatings are applied to confer enhanced light trapping, water repellence, and UV light and environmental moisture protection features in perovskite solar cells. The former feature helps attain a maximum power conversion efficiency of 24.61% (21.01% for the reference cell) without any additional device optimization. Added to these merits, the nanocoatings also enable stable operation under AM 1.5G and UV light continuous illumination or in real-world conditions. Our engineering approach provides a simple way to produce multifunctional nanocoatings optimized by nature's wisdom.

Keywords: antireflection; flower nanocoatings; high efficiency; perovskite solar cells; self-cleaning; stability.