About

Bin Chen is a faculty member associated with the Paula M. Trienens Institute For Sustainability And Energy at Northwestern University. The page does not provide specific details about his research focus, background, or key contributions. Therefore, no further biographical information is available from the provided content.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Chemistry
• Optoelectronics
• Nanotechnology
• Crystallography
• Composite material
• Electrical engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Optics
• Inorganic chemistry
• Physics
• Organic chemistry

Selected publications

• All-perovskite tandem solar cells with improved grain surface passivation

  Nature · 917 citations

  • Materials science
  • Optoelectronics
  • Chemistry

  Abstract All-perovskite tandem solar cells hold the promise of surpassing the efficiency limits of single-junction solar cells1–3; however, until now, the best-performing all-perovskite tandem solar cells have exhibited lower certified efficiency than have single-junction perovskite solar cells4, 5. A thick mixed Pb–Sn narrow-bandgap subcell is needed to achieve high photocurrent density in tandem solar cells6, yet this is challenging owing to the short carrier diffusion length within Pb–Sn perovskites. Here we develop ammonium-cation-passivated Pb–Sn perovskites with long diffusion lengths, enabling subcells that have an absorber thickness of approximately 1.2 μm. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate that widely used phenethylammonium cations are only partially adsorbed on the surface defective sites at perovskite crystallization temperatures. The passivator adsorption is predicted to be enhanced using 4-trifluoromethyl-phenylammonium (CF3-PA), which exhibits a stronger perovskite surface-passivator interaction than does phenethylammonium. By adding a small amount of CF3-PA into the precursor solution, we increase the carrier diffusion length within Pb–Sn perovskites twofold, to over 5 μm, and increase the efficiency of Pb–Sn perovskite solar cells to over 22%. We report a certified efficiency of 26.4% in all-perovskite tandem solar cells, which exceeds that of the best-performing single-junction perovskite solar cells. Encapsulated tandem devices retain more than 90% of their initial performance after 600 h of operation at the maximum power point under 1 Sun illumination in ambient conditions.

  DOI

• Field Effect Passivation Enables 2.2 V Open-Circuit Voltage All-perovskite Tandems

  2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Optoelectronics
  • Materials science
  • Chemistry

  All-perovskite tandem solar cells are promising to break the efficiency limits of single-junction cells at low cost. However, such promise has been limited by the open circuit voltage (VOC) deficit in tandems. The VOC loss is greater in wide bandgap (>1.7 eV) top cells than in ~1.5 eV perovskites. Quasi-Fermi level splitting (QFLS) measurements reveal VOC-limiting recombination at the electron transport layer (ETL) contact. Our study shows that treating the perovskite surface with 1,3-propane diammonium (PDA) increases QFLS by 90 mV. We found that the suppressed interfacial recombination is due to reduced minority carrier population at the perovskite/C60 interface, and improved surface homogeneity. PDA treated 1.78 eV perovskite cells achieve a certified 1.33 V VOC, and > 19% power conversion efficiency (PCE). Incorporating this layer into a monolithic all-perovskite tandem, we report a tandem VOC of 2.2 V and > 28% PCE. Encapsulated tandems retain more than 85% of their initial PCE after 500 hrs operation under 1 sun illumination in ambient conditions.

  PublisherDOI

• Bimolecularly passivated interface enables efficient and stable inverted perovskite solar cells

  Science · 2023 · 652 citations

  • Materials science
  • Optoelectronics
  • Nanotechnology

  interface. We passivated surface defects and enabled reflection of minority carriers from the interface into the bulk using two types of functional molecules. We used sulfur-modified methylthio molecules to passivate surface defects and suppress recombination through strong coordination and hydrogen bonding, along with diammonium molecules to repel minority carriers and reduce contact-induced interface recombination achieved through field-effect passivation. This approach led to a fivefold longer carrier lifetime and one-third the photoluminescence quantum yield loss and enabled a certified quasi-steady-state PCE of 25.1% for inverted PSCs with stable operation at 65°C for >2000 hours in ambient air. We also fabricated monolithic all-perovskite tandem solar cells with 28.1% PCE.

  DOI

• Managing grains and interfaces via ligand anchoring enables 22.3%-efficiency inverted perovskite solar cells

  Nature Energy · 2020 · 1214 citations

  • Materials science
  • Optoelectronics
  • Nanotechnology
  DOI

• Regulating strain in perovskite thin films through charge-transport layers

  Nature Communications · 2020 · 635 citations

  • Materials science
  • Composite material
  • Optoelectronics

  Thermally-induced tensile strain that remains in perovskite films following annealing results in increased ion migration and is a known factor in the instability of these materials. Previously-reported strain regulation methods for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have utilized substrates with high thermal expansion coefficients that limits the processing temperature of perovskites and compromises power conversion efficiency. Here we compensate residual tensile strain by introducing an external compressive strain from the hole-transport layer. By using a hole-transport layer with high thermal expansion coefficient, we compensate the tensile strain in PSCs by elevating the processing temperature of hole-transport layer. We find that compressive strain increases the activation energy for ion migration, improving the stability of perovskite films. We achieve an efficiency of 16.4% for compressively-strained PSCs; and these retain 96% of their initial efficiencies after heating at 85 °C for 1000 hours-the most stable wide-bandgap perovskites (above 1.75 eV) reported so far.

  DOI

• Bipolar-shell resurfacing for blue LEDs based on strongly confined perovskite quantum dots

  Nature Nanotechnology · 2020 · 807 citations

  • Materials science
  • Optoelectronics
  • Nanotechnology
  DOI

• Efficient electrically powered CO2-to-ethanol via suppression of deoxygenation

  Nature Energy · 2020 · 648 citations

  • Materials science
  • Inorganic chemistry
  • Chemical engineering
  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Edward H. Sargent

  University of Toronto

  148 shared

• Sefaattin Tongay

  Arizona State University

  58 shared

• Shouwen Jin

  Zhejiang A & F University

  56 shared

• Daniela A. Wilson

  Radboud University Nijmegen

  51 shared

• Yingfeng Tu

  Southern Medical University

  50 shared

• Dailin Du

  Bridge University

  49 shared

• Jinhui Rong

  Radboud University Nijmegen

  49 shared

• Qi Lv

  Bridge University

  49 shared

Labs

• Trienens Institute for Sustainability and EnergyPI

Education

• PhD in MSE, SEMTE

  Arizona State University

  2018

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