The effect of polymer gel electrolytes between PAN and PMMA on perovskite solar cells performance synthesized in ambient condition

One of the common issues in perovskite solar cells is achieving good contact between the perovskite, the hole transport layer, and the electrode. To overcome this problem, gel polymer electrolyte (GPEs) can be used as a charge transport medium. This research aims to investigate the effect of using GPES based on polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) on the perovskite solar cells of TiO2/CH3NH3PbI3/NiO/GPES/Pt/FTO. TiO2 is synthesized by spin coating and the doctor-blade technique on the compact layer and the mesoporous layer, respectively. The perovskite was synthesized by a two-step-coating method. However, the perovskite layer is rapidly degraded. Therefore, the NiO layer was coated above the perovskite layer before heating using the spin-coating technique. The coating of the NiO layer prevents direct contact between the perovskite layers and GPEs, and functions as a Hole Transporting Material (HTM) layer, simultaneously. All samples were characterized by XRD to determine the crystal's orientation and phase purity, SEM-EDX to know the morphological shape and elemental composition, EIS measurement to calculate RCT and RS and J-V measurement to calculate the parameters of solar cell performance. The performance of perovskite solar cells using GPES PAN is better than using GPES PMMA.