Defect passivation with potassium trifluoroborate for efficient spray-coated perovskite solar cells in air

Defects as non-radiative recombination centers hinder the further efficiency improvements of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Additive engineering has been demonstrated to be an effective method for defect passivation in perovskite films. Here, we employed (4-methoxyphenyl) potassium trifluoroborate (C7H7BF3KO) with {{\rm{BF}}_3^-} and K+ functional groups to passivate spray-coated (FAPbI3)x(MAPbBr3)1–x perovskite and eliminate hysteresis. It is shown that the F of {{\rm{BF}}_3^-} can form hydrogen bonds with the H atom in the amino group of MA+/FA+ ions of perovskite, thus reducing the generation of MA+/FA+ vacancies and improving device efficiency. Meanwhile, K+ and reduced MA+/FA+ vacancies can inhibit ion migration, thereby eliminating hysteresis. With the aid of C7H7BF3KO, we obtained hysteresis-free PSCs with the maximum efficiency of 19.5% by spray-coating in air. Our work demonstrates that additive engineering is promising to improve the performance of spray-coated PSCs.