Degradation behavior and damage mechanisms of perovskite solar cells under 50–200 keV proton irradiations

As a next-generation solar cell, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are attracting increasing research interests for space applications, which necessitates a broad understanding of proton radiation effects in PSCs to predict their performance in space environment. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the performance degradation in CsMAFAPbI₃-based PSCs induced individually by proton irradiations with different energies: 50 keV, 100 keV, 150 keV, and 200 keV. It is shown that the PSCs start to degrade when the proton fluence exceeds 1 × 10¹³ p/cm² and they are completely destroyed at 3 × 10¹⁴ p/cm². A sigmoidal equation is proposed to describe the photoelectric parameter variation of the PSCs as a function of proton fluence. With increasing proton energy, the damage efficiency of incident protons in PSCs decreases, though 50 keV protons don't follow this trend due to their reduced ion range. While the perovskite absorber in the PSCs exhibits superior radiation resistance, irradiation-induced decomposition of the spiro-OMeTAD hole transport layer is observed due to electronic energy deposition, which accounts for the degradation of device performance.