Recent Progress in the Design and Synthesis of Nitrides for Mesoscopic and Perovskite Solar Cells

With growing concerns about global warming and the energy crisis, a variety of photovoltaic devices have attracted worldwide attention as alternative energy sources. Among them, organic-inorganic hybrid photovoltaics, typically mesoscopic and perovskite solar cells, are promising, owing to their potential for low-cost energy production, which mainly comes from unlimited combinations of materials optimized for each step of solar energy conversion. However, the commercialization of organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells is hampered by costly electrocatalysts or hole-transport materials. Currently, state-of-the-art dye- or quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells and perovskite solar cells necessitate noble metals and high-price polymeric materials. In an attempt to resolve this issue, various kinds of metal compounds have been investigated, and nitrides have been actively reported to possess a num…