article · Advanced Materials
Indoor photovoltaics offer a practical route to directly power wireless Internet of Things devices, but standard lead halide perovskites present toxicity risks indoors. Lead-free alternatives, such as tin halide perovskites, provide comparable optoelectronic qualities without the threat of toxic lead leakage, yet their performance has been constrained by poor crystallisation control. A newly developed adhesive bonding method addresses this issue by using alkali metal fluorides to govern heterogeneous nucleation kinetics. Acting as ionic adhesives, these compounds enhance the work of adhesion at the interface between the substrate and the perovskite layer. This interaction reduces the contact angle and lowers the energy barrier for nucleation, yielding superior film quality. Devices made using this technique achieved an indoor power conversion efficiency of 20.12 percent under 1000 lux illumination, surpassing other lead-free designs and successfully driving radio frequency identification sensors.
Connected indoor devices often require continuous electrical power without the maintenance challenges of standard batteries. While lead-based solar harvesters perform well, toxic materials are unsuitable for homes and offices. Demonstrating high-efficiency, lead-free tin halide solar cells proves that safe, non-toxic materials can harvest indoor light effectively enough to sustain low-power electronics.
This technology is targeted at manufacturers of indoor Internet of Things hardware and wireless sensors, such as radio frequency identification tags, seeking battery-free power sources. Because the cells have been applied and tested to power actual sensors in a laboratory setting, the work sits at an applied prototype stage, though scaling manufacturing and long-term durability testing remain necessary steps before broader commercial deployment.
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The rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) has accelerated the advancement of indoor photovoltaics (IPVs) that directly power wireless IoT devices. The interest in lead-free perovskites for IPVs stems from their similar optoelectronic properties to high-performance lead halide perovskites, but without concerns about toxic lead leakage in indoor environments. However, currently prevalent lead-free perovskite IPVs, especially tin halide perovskites (THPs), still exhibit inferior performance, arising from their uncontrollable crystallization. Here, a novel adhesive bonding strategy is proposed for precisely regulating heterogeneous nucleation kinetics of THPs by introducing alkali metal fluorides. These ionic adhesives boost the work of adhesion at the buried interface between substrates and perovskite film, subsequently reducing the contact angle and energy barrier for heterogeneous nucleation, resulting in high-quality THP films. The resulting THP solar cells achieve an efficiency of 20.12% under indoor illumination at 1000 lux, exceeding all types of lead-free perovskite IPVs and successfully powering radio frequency identification-based sensors.
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DOI: 10.1002/adma.202403413
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