Carbazole-based enamine: Low-cost and efficient hole transporting material for perovskite solar cells

A simple carbazole-based conjugated enamine V950 was synthesized, fully characterized and incorporated into a perovskite solar cell, which displayed high power conversion efficiency close to 18%. The investigated hole transporting material was synthesized via an extremely simple route (one step, no expensive catalysts, no column chromatography or sublimation purification) from commercially available and relatively inexpensive starting reagents, resulting in more than one order of magnitude lower cost of the final product compared to the commercial 2,2', 7,7'-tetrakis( N, N-di-p-methoxy-phenylamine)-9-9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD). This material promises to be a viable p-type organic charge conductor to be employed in the scale-up and manufacturing of perovskite solar modules.