Copper nanoparticle-decorated RGO electrodes as hole transport layer of perovskite solar cells enhancing efficiency and shelf stability

Abstract In this work, we explore the addition of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) decorated with copper (Cu@RGO) as hole transport layer (HTL) into carbon/CH3NH3PbI3/TiO2/FTO perovskite solar cell (PSC). Numerous instrumentations characterized the fabricated composites. The deposited Cu on RGO showed spherical metallic particles with diameters of 22–30 nm. Current density–voltage curves and Incident photon-to-electron conversion explore the impact of Cu@RGO on the photoconversion efficiency (PCE). The fashioned Cu@RGO nanocomposite showed improved PCE at 13.55% compared to 11.3 and 5.5% for the PSCs with Ag@RGO and pure RGO as HTL, respectively. These impacts are due to the significant hole extraction that proved by the photoluminescence quenching. Moreover, the produced devices with Cu@RGO displayed shelf stability at 88.8% of its initial PCE after two months. This work marks an important milestone towards the development of solar cells with reliable and high-performance perovskites.