The Complex Degradation Mechanism of Copper Electrodes on Lead Halide Perovskites

Lead halide perovskitesolar cells have reached power conversionefficiencies during the past few years that rival those of crystallinesilicon solar cells, and there is a concentrated effort to commercializethem. The use of gold electrodes, the current standard, is prohibitivelycostly for commercial application. Copper is a promising low-costelectrode material that has shown good stability in perovskite solarcells with selective contacts. Furthermore, it has the potential tobe self-passivating through the formation of CuI, a copper salt whichis also used as a hole selective material. Based on these opportunities,we investigated the interface reactions between lead halide perovskitesand copper in this work. Specifically, copper was deposited on theperovskite surface, and the reactions were followed in detail usingsynchrotron-based and in-house photoelectron spectroscopy. The resultsshow a rich interfacial chemistry with reactions starting upon depositionand, with the exposure to oxygen and moisture, progress over manyweeks, resulting in significant degradation of both the copper andthe perovskite. The degradation results not only in the formationof CuI, as expected, but also in the formation of two previously unreporteddegradation products. The hope is that a deeper understanding of theseprocesses will aid in the design of corrosion-resistant copper-basedelectrodes