Polymeric hole-transport materials with side-chain redox-active groups for perovskite solar cells with good reproducibility

Two monomers, M:OO and M:ON, and their corresponding polymers, P:OO and P:ON, were prepared from styrene derivatives N,N-diphenyl-4-vinyl-aniline with different substitutents (-OCH3 and –N(CH3)2) in the N-phenyl para positions. The polymers were synthesised and fully characterised to study their function as hole transport materials (HTMs) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The thermal, optical and electrochemical properties and performance of these monomers and polymers as HTMs in PSCs were compared in terms of their structure. The polymers form more stable amorphous glassy states and showed higher thermal stability than the monomers. The different substituent in the para position influenced the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level, altering the oxidation potential. Both monomers and polymers were employed as HTMs in perovskite solar cells with a device configuration FTO/bl-TiO2/mp-TiO2/CH3NH3PbI3/HTM/Au resulting in power conversion efficiencies of 7.48% for M:OO, 5.14% for P:OO, 5.28% for P:ON and 3.52% for M:ON. Although showing comparatively low efficiencies, the polymers showed much superior reproducibility in comparison with Spiro-OMeTAD or the monomers, suggesting further optimisation of polymeric HTMs with redox side groups is warranted.