Harnessing the potential of CsPbBr3-based perovskite solar cells using efficient charge transport materials and global optimization

M Khalid Hossain; Sagar Bhattarai; A A Arnab; Mustafa K A Mohammed; Rahul Pandey; Md Hasan Ali; Md Ferdous Rahman; Md Rasidul Islam; D P Samajdar; Jaya Madan; H Bencherif; D K Dwivedi; Mongi Amami

doi:10.1039/d3ra02485g

Harnessing the potential of CsPbBr₃-based perovskite solar cells using efficient charge transport materials and global optimization

RSC Adv. 2023 Jul 12;13(30):21044-21062. doi: 10.1039/d3ra02485g. eCollection 2023 Jul 7.

Authors

M Khalid Hossain¹, Sagar Bhattarai², A A Arnab³, Mustafa K A Mohammed⁴, Rahul Pandey⁵, Md Hasan Ali⁶, Md Ferdous Rahman⁶, Md Rasidul Islam⁷, D P Samajdar⁸, Jaya Madan⁵, H Bencherif⁹, D K Dwivedi¹⁰, Mongi Amami¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Electronics, Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission Dhaka 1349 Bangladesh khalid.baec@gmail.com khalid@kyudai.jp.
² Department of Physics, Arunachal University of Studies Namsai 792103 Arunachal Pradesh India.
³ Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology Dhaka 1208 Bangladesh.
⁴ University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa 56001 Karbala Iraq.
⁵ VLSI Centre of Excellence, Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University Punjab 140401 India.
⁶ Advanced Energy Materials and Solar Cell Research Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Begum Rokeya University Rangpur 5400 Bangladesh.
⁷ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Bangamata Sheikh Fojilatunnesa Mujib Science & Technology University Jamalpur 2012 Bangladesh.
⁸ Department of ECE, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design & Manufacturing Madhya Pradesh 482005 India.
⁹ LEREESI, Higher National School of Renewable Energies, Environment and Sustainable Development Batna 05078 Algeria.
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Material Science, Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology Gorakhpur-273010 U.P. India.
¹¹ Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, King Khalid University P.O. Box 9004 Abha Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have become a possible alternative to traditional photovoltaic devices for their high performance, low cost, and ease of fabrication. Here in this study, the SCAPS-1D simulator numerically simulates and optimizes CsPbBr₃-based PSCs under the optimum illumination situation. We explore the impact of different back metal contacts (BMCs), including Cu, Ag, Fe, C, Au, W, Pt, Se, Ni, and Pd combined with the TiO₂ electron transport layer (ETL) and CFTS hole transport layer (HTL), on the performance of the devices. After optimization, the ITO/TiO₂/CsPbBr₃/CFTS/Ni structure showed a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE or η) of 13.86%, with Ni as a more cost-effective alternative to Au. After the optimization of the BMC the rest of the investigation is conducted both with and without HTL mode. We investigate the impact of changing the thickness and the comparison with acceptor and defect densities (with and without HTL) of the CsPbBr₃ perovskite absorber layer on the PSC performance. Finally, we optimized the thickness, charge carrier densities, and defect densities of the absorber, ETL, and HTL, along with the interfacial defect densities at HTL/absorber and absorber/ETL interfaces to improve the PCE of the device; and the effect of variation of these parameters is also investigated both with and without HTL connected. The final optimized configuration achieved a V_OC of 0.87 V, J_SC of 27.57 mA cm^-2, FF of 85.93%, and PCE of 20.73%. To further investigate the performance of the optimized device, we explore the impact of the temperature, shunt resistance, series resistance, capacitance, generation rate, recombination rate, Mott-Schottky, JV, and QE features of both with and without HTL connected. The optimized device offers the best thermal stability at a temperature of 300 K. Our study highlights the potential of CsPbBr₃-based PSCs and provides valuable insights for their optimization and future development.