A Morphological Study of Solvothermally Grown SnO Nanostructures for Application in Perovskite Solar Cells.

Tin(IV) oxide (SnO) nanostructures, which possess larger surface areas for transporting electron carriers, have been used as an electron transport layer (ETL) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, the reported power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of this type of PSCs show a large variation. One of the possible reasons for this phenomenon is the low reproducibility of SnO nanostructures if they are prepared by different research groups using various growth methods. This work focuses on the morphological study of SnO nanostructures grown by a solvothermal method. The growth parameters including growth pressure, substrate orientation, DI water-to-ethanol ratios, types of seed layer, amount of acetic acid, and growth time have been systematically varied. The SnO nanomorphology exhibits a different degree of sensitivity and trends towards each growth factor. A surface treatment is also required for solvothermally grown SnO nanomaterials for improving photovoltaic performance of PSCs. The obtained results in this work provide the research community with an insight into the general trend of morphological changes in SnO nanostructures influenced by different solvothermal growth parameters. This information can guide the researchers to prepare more reproducible solvothermally grown SnO nanomaterials for future application in devices.