Moisture-triggered fast crystallization enables efficient and stable perovskite solar cells

Understanding the function of moisture on perovskite is challenging since the random environmental moisture strongly disturbs the perovskite structure. Here, we develop various N 2 -protected characterization techniques to comprehensively study the effect of moisture on the efficient cesium, methylammonium, and formamidinium triple-cation perovskite (Cs 0.05 FA 0.75 MA 0.20 )Pb(I 0.96 Br 0.04 ) 3 . In contrast to the secondary measurements, the established air-exposure-free techniques allow us directly monitor the influence of moisture during perovskite crystallization. We find a controllable moisture treatment for the intermediate perovskite can promote the mass transportation of organic salts, and help them enter the buried bottom of the films. This process accelerates the quasi-solid-solid reaction between organic salts and PbI 2 , enables a spatially homogeneous intermediate phase, and translates to high-quality perovskites with much-suppressed defects. Consequently, we obtain a champion device efficiency of approaching 24% with negligible hysteresis. The devices exhibit an average T 80 -lifetime of 852 h (maximum 1210 h) working at the maximum power point. Perovskite structure is disturbed by environmental moisture, limiting the device performance. Here, Wei et al. monitor the effect of moisture during the growth by N 2 -protected characterization techniques, and obtain an operationally stable perovskite solar cell with efficiency approaching 24%.