A BODIPY small molecule as hole transporting material for efficient perovskite solar cells

BODIPY-based materials are well known for their outstanding chemical and photo-stability as well as their ease of synthesis and tunability of their frontier molecular orbitals. These are attractive features for hole transporting materials (HTMs) for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) that could help improve device stability and cost. In this paper, we report the straightforward synthesis of a new BODIPY small molecule, PTZ-PTZ-BDP, functionalised with phenothiazine moieties in both the meso and alpha positions giving rise to a Y-shaped structure. As estimated by DFT calculations, and confirmed by electrochemical and ambient photoemission spectroscopy studies, PTZ-PTZ-BDP presents appropriate energy levels suitable for its use as a HTM in PSCs. Electrochemical measurements also reveal several redox processes with excellent reversibility. Systematic evaluation of its performance as HTM in n-i-p PSC with and without dopants was conducted and the device parameters compared with commonly used HTMs of spiro-OMeTAD and PTAA. The CH3NH3PbI3 based PSCs incorporating simple solution processed PTZ-PTZ-BDP as HTM demonstrated a champion power conversion efficiency of 14.6%, matched in performance and shelf-life stability to complex and expensive state-of-the-art HTMs, showing that BODIPY based HTMs are a promising direction for perovskite solar cells.