Metal organic framework derived NiO x nanoparticles for application as a hole transport layer in perovskite solar cells

Md Ariful Islam; Vidhya Selvanathan; Puvaneswaran Chelvanathan; M Mottakin; Mohammod Aminuzzaman; Mohd Adib Ibrahim; Ghulam Muhammad; Md Akhtaruzzaman

doi:10.1039/d3ra02181e

Metal organic framework derived NiO _x nanoparticles for application as a hole transport layer in perovskite solar cells

RSC Adv. 2023 Apr 27;13(19):12781-12791. doi: 10.1039/d3ra02181e. eCollection 2023 Apr 24.

Authors

Md Ariful Islam¹, Vidhya Selvanathan², Puvaneswaran Chelvanathan¹, M Mottakin^{1

3}, Mohammod Aminuzzaman⁴, Mohd Adib Ibrahim¹, Ghulam Muhammad⁵, Md Akhtaruzzaman^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) 43600 Bangi Selangor Malaysia akhtar@ukm.edu.my.
² Institute of Sustainable Energy, Universiti Tenaga Nasional (The Energy University) Jalan Ikram-Uniten Kajang 43000 Selangor Malaysia.
³ Department of Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University Gopalganj-8100 Bangladesh.
⁴ Department of Chemical Science, Faculty of Science, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Perak Campus, Jalan Universiti Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar Perak D. R. Malaysia.
⁵ Department of Computer Engineering, College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University Riyadh Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Tsukuba Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-8573 Japan.

Abstract

NiO _x as a hole transport layer (HTL) has gained a lot of research interest in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), owing to its high optical transmittance, high power conversion efficiency, wide band-gap and ease of fabrication. In this work, four different nickel based-metal organic frameworks (MOFs) using 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (BTC), terephthalic acid (TPA), 2-aminoterephthalic acid (ATPA), and 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalic acid (DHTPA) ligands respectively, have been employed as precursors to synthesize NiO _x NPs. The employment of different ligands was found to result in NiO _x NPs with different structural, optical and morphological properties. The impact of calcination temperatures of the MOFs was also studied and according to field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), all MOF-derived NiO _x NPs exhibited lower particle size at lower calcination temperature. Upon optimization, Ni-TPA MOF derived NiO _x NPs calcined at 600 °C were identified to be the best for hole transport layer application. To explore the photovoltaic performance, these NiO _x NPs have been fabricated as a thin film and its structural, optical and electrical characteristics were analyzed. According to the findings, the band energy gap (E _g) of the fabricated thin film has been found to be 3.25 eV and the carrier concentration, hole mobility and resistivity were also measured to be 6.8 × 10¹⁴ cm^-3; 4.7 × 10¹⁴ Ω cm and 2.0 cm² V^-1 s^-1, respectively. Finally, a numerical simulation was conducted using SCAPS-1D incorporating the optical and electrical parameters from the thin film analysis. FTO/TiO₂/CsPbBr₃/NiO _x /C has been utilized as the device configuration which recorded an efficiency of 13.9% with V _oc of 1.89 V, J _sc of 11.07 mA cm^-2, and FF of 66.6%.