Advancing of the lead halide perovskite solar cells towards photovoltaic market demands large-scale devices of high-power conversion efficiency, high reproducibility and stability via low-cost fabrication technology, and in particular resistance to humid environment for long-time operation. Here we achieve uniform perovskite film based on a novel polymer-scaffold architecture via a mild-temperature process. These solar cells exhibit efficiency of up to ~16% with small variation. The unencapsulated devices retain high output for up to 300 h in highly humid environment (70% relative humidity). Moreover, they show strong humidity resistant and self-healing behaviour, recovering rapidly after removing from water vapour. Not only the film can self-heal in this case, but the corresponding devices can present power conversion efficiency recovery after the water vapour is removed. Our work demonstrates the value of cheap, long chain and hygroscopic polymer scaffold in perovskite solar cells towards commercialization.

Nature Communications 7, Article number: 10228 doi:10.1038/ncomms10228
Received 09 September 2015 Accepted 18 November 2015 Published 06 January 2016

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160106/ncomms10228/full/ncomms10228.html