Twenty-Two Percent Efficient Pb-Free All-Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells Using SCAPS-1D

Ali Alsalme; Huda Alsaeedi

doi:10.3390/nano13010096

Twenty-Two Percent Efficient Pb-Free All-Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells Using SCAPS-1D

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Dec 25;13(1):96. doi: 10.3390/nano13010096.

Authors

Ali Alsalme¹, Huda Alsaeedi¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Herein, we reported the simulation study of lead (Pb)-free all-perovskite tandem solar cells using SCAPS-1D. Tandem solar cells are comprised of two different cells which are known as the top cell and the bottom cell. We simulated tandem solar cells using methyl ammonium germanium iodide (MAGeI₃) as the top subcell absorber layer due to its wide band gap of 1.9 eV. Further, FA_0.75MA_0.25Sn_0.25Ge_0.5I₃ = FAMASnGeI₃ was used as the bottom subcell absorber layer due to its narrow band gap of 1.4 eV. The tandem solar cells were simulated with MAGeI₃ as the top cell and FAMASnGeI₃ as the bottom subcell using SCAPS-1D. Various electro-transport layers (ETLs) i.e., titanium dioxide, tin oxide, zinc oxide, tungsten trioxide, and zinc selenide, were used to examine the impact of ETL on the efficiency of tandem solar cells. The observations revealed that TiO₂ and ZnSe have more suitable band alignment and better charge-extraction/transfer properties. A reasonably improved efficiency of 23.18% and 22.4% have been achieved for TiO₂ and ZnSe layer-based tandem solar cells, respectively.

Keywords: FAMASnGeI3; MAGeI3; Pb-free all-perovskite tandem solar cells; SCAPS-1D; tandem solar cells.

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the the Deputyship for Research and Innovation, Ministry of Education, Saudi Arabia for financial support (project number IFKSURG-2-1339).