All-Inorganic p-n Heterojunction Solar Cells by Solution Combustion Synthesis Using N-type FeMnO3 Perovskite Photoactive Layer

Ioannis T Papadas; Apostolos Ioakeimidis; Ioannis Vamvasakis; Polyvios Eleftheriou; Gerasimos S Armatas; Stelios A Choulis

doi:10.3389/fchem.2021.754487

All-Inorganic p-n Heterojunction Solar Cells by Solution Combustion Synthesis Using N-type FeMnO₃ Perovskite Photoactive Layer

Front Chem. 2021 Sep 29:9:754487. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2021.754487. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ioannis T Papadas^{1

2}, Apostolos Ioakeimidis¹, Ioannis Vamvasakis³, Polyvios Eleftheriou¹, Gerasimos S Armatas³, Stelios A Choulis¹

Affiliations

¹ Molecular Electronics and Photonics Research Unit, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus.
² Department of Public and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece.
³ Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece.

Abstract

This study outlines the synthesis and physicochemical characteristics of a solution-processable iron manganite (FeMnO₃) nanoparticles via a chemical combustion method using tartaric acid as a fuel whilst demonstrating the performance of this material as a n-type photoactive layer in all-oxide solar cells. It is shown that the solution combustion synthesis (SCS) method enables the formation of pure crystal phase FeMnO₃ with controllable particle size. XRD pattern and morphology images from TEM confirm the purity of FeMnO₃ phase and the relatively small crystallite size (∼13 nm), firstly reported in the literature. Moreover, to assemble a network of connected FeMnO₃ nanoparticles, β-alanine was used as a capping agent and dimethylformamide (DMF) as a polar aprotic solvent for the colloidal dispersion of FeMnO₃ NPs. This procedure yields a ∼500 nm thick FeMnO₃ n-type photoactive layer. The proposed method is crucial to obtain functional solution processed NiO/FeMnO₃ heterojunction inorganic photovoltaics. Photovoltaic performance and solar cell device limitations of the NiO/FeMnO₃-based heterojunction solar cells are presented.

Keywords: FeMnO3; NiO; functional metal oxides; inorganic perovskites; inorganic solar cells; p-n junction; photoactive nanomaterials; solution combustion synthesis.