Butanediammonium Salt Additives for Increasing Functional and Operando Stability of Light-Harvesting Materials in Perovskite Solar Cells

Organic diammonium cations are a promising component of both layered (2D) and conventional (3D) hybrid halide perovskites in terms of increasing the stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). We investigated the crystallization ability of phase-pure 2D perovskites based on 1,4-butanediammonium iodide (BDAI(2)) with the layer thicknesses n = 1, 2, 3 and, for the first time, revealed the presence of a persistent barrier to obtain BDA-based layered compounds with n > 1. Secondly, we introduced BDAI(2) salt into 3D lead–iodide perovskites with different cation compositions and discovered a threshold-like nonmonotonic dependence of the perovskite microstructure, optoelectronic properties, and device performance on the amount of diammonium additive. The value of the threshold amount of BDAI(2) was found to be ≤1%, below which bulk passivation plays the positive effect on charge carrier lifetimes, fraction of radiative recombination, and PSCs power conversion efficiencies (PCE). In contrast, the presence of any amount of diammonium salt leads to the sufficient enhancement of the photothermal stability of perovskite materials and devices, compared to the reference samples. The performance of all the passivated devices remained within the range of 50 to 80% of the initial PCE after 400 h of continuous 1 sun irradiation with a stabilized temperature of 65 °C, while the performance of the control devices deteriorated after 170 h of the experiment.