High-performance, large-area semitransparent and tandem perovskite solar cells featuring highly scalable a-ITO/Ag mesh 3D top electrodes

The photovoltaic performance and scalability potential of a semitransparent perovskite solar cells (ST-PSCs) are primarily determined by the optoelectronic properties of the top transparent conducting electrode (TCE) used. Herein, we demonstrate the scalable fabrication of ST-PSC using a three-dimensional (3D) TCE consisting of (i) a sputtered amorphous indium-tin-oxide (a-ITO) film and (ii) silver (Ag) mesh subelectrodes prepared via a 3D direct-ink writing technique. At an optimized aspect ratio of 0.5, the a-ITO/Ag mesh 3D TCE exhibits a sheet resistance of 85% transmittance in the near-infrared region. Moreover, the ST-PSCs displayed superior ambient and thermal stability than the opaque PSCs due to the presence of a-ITO buffer that prevents moisture ingress and ions migration. Using ST-PSC as a top cell, the standard (0.07 cm2) and large-area (1.0 cm2) four-terminal ST-PSC/SiSC tandem cells achieved PCEs of 26.47% and 24.70%, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, our tandem cell showed the minimum efficiency roll-off among all the reported large-area tandem cells, manifesting the scalability potential of our ST-PSCs. Three-dimensional amorphous ITO (a-ITO)/Ag mesh transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) are fabricated directly on semitransparent perovskite solar cells (ST-PSC) through a combination of sputtering and 3D direct-ink writing techniques. The use of a-ITO/Ag mesh TCE has produced 16.3%-efficient ST-PSC and 26.5%-efficient four-terminal perovskite/silicon tandem cell with great scalability potential. [Display omitted] •a-ITO/Ag mesh 3D TCE are fabricated using sputtering and 3D printing methods.•Optimized a-ITO/Ag mesh 3D TCE show > 85% transmittance and 85% NIR transparency.•ST-PSCs exhibits outstanding ambient stability (>85% after 2000 h) and operational stability (>88% after 350 h).•4 T perovskite/silicon tandem cells produced a PCE of 26.47% with excellent scalability.