Numerical Simulation of NH3(CH2)2NH3MnCl4 Based Pb-Free Perovskite Solar Cells Via SCAPS-1D

Khursheed Ahmad; Waseem Raza; Rais Ahmad Khan; Ali Alsalme; Haekyoung Kim

doi:10.3390/nano12193407

Numerical Simulation of NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄ Based Pb-Free Perovskite Solar Cells Via SCAPS-1D

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Sep 28;12(19):3407. doi: 10.3390/nano12193407.

Authors

Khursheed Ahmad¹, Waseem Raza², Rais Ahmad Khan³, Ali Alsalme³, Haekyoung Kim¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan 38541, Korea.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Recently, the design and fabrication of lead (Pb)-free perovskite or perovskite-like materials have received great interest for the development of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Manganese (Mn) is a less toxic element, which may be an alternative to Pb. In this work, we explored the role of NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄ perovskite as a light absorber layer via SCAPS-1D. A Pb-free PSC device (FTO/TiO₂/NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄/spiro-OMeTAD/Au) was simulated via SCAPS-1D software. The simulated Pb-free PSCs (FTO/TiO₂/NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄/spiro-OMeTAD/Au) showed decent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.19%. Further, the impact of the thickness of absorber (NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄), electron transport (TiO₂), and hole-transport (spiro-OMeTAD) layers were also investigated. Subsequently, various electron transport layers (ETLs) were also introduced to investigate the role of ETL. In further studies, an NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄-based PSC device (FTO/TiO₂/NH₃(CH₂)₂NH₃MnCl₄/spiro-OMeTAD/Au) was also developed (humidity = ~30-40%). The fabricated PSCs displayed an open circuit voltage (Voc) of 510 mV with a PCE of 0.12%.

Keywords: NH3(CH2)2NH3MnCl4; Pb-free perovskite solar cells; SCAPS-1D; electron transport layer; numerical simulation.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Korea Innovation Foundation (INNOPOLIS) [grant number 2020-DD-UP-0278], the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT; NRF-2022R1A2C1005585) and Researchers Supporting Project (Project number, RSP-2021/78), King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).