The modification of ZnO with 2D g-C3N5 as electron transport layer for high-performance and stable organic solar cells.

ZnO has been traditionally applied in organic solar cells (OSCs) as electron transport layer (ETL). However, inevitable vacancy defects existed on the surface of ZnO will result in trap-assisted recombination centers and thus low efficient electron transport in OSCs. Herein, an effective and facile method has been developed to modify the ZnO surface with two-dimensional (2D) g-C3N5 for high-performance and stable OSCs. The results show that 2D g-C3N5 can effectively passivate various defects on the surface of ZnO, such as oxygen vacancies and -OH, leading to the reduction of the work function of ZnO layer. The combination of theoretical calculations and experimental characterizations reveals charge transfer mechanism between g-C3N5 and ZnO surface and physical mechanism of oxygen vacancy filling in ZnO. Furthermore, with 1 wt% g-C3N5-modified ZnO as the ETL, inverted OSCs based on PM6: BTP-eC9 and PM6:L8-BO:BTP-eC9 exhibit the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.15% and 18.84%, respectively, which is much higher than that for the corresponding reference devices without the modified ETL (16.37% and 17.63%). Therefore, this study provides an effective and facile way for the defect modification of ZnO by 2D materials, and offers a deep understanding of the passivation mechanism of ZnO defects.