Design and Analysis of High Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells with Light Trapping Nano-textured Substrates

Abstract

Recently, the utilization of hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells under advanced light management designs have attracted intensive attention. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) finite element method (FEM) technique was used in the COMSOL Multiphysics simulation package to investigate coupled optical and electrical characteristics of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with light trapping nanostructures. Upon the use of nano-textured fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates, we propose two architectures which can guide and trap the light at nanometer dimensions. Two proposed PSCs i.e. concave and trapezoidal structures are compared to the planar structure in order to investigate the effects of using nanostructured substrates on the optoelectronic performance of PSCs. Optical analysis reveals that using optimized concave and trapezoidal structures can enhance the light absorption up to 32 and 26%, respectively at the wavelength of 550 nm. Electrical simulations have shown that in addition to enhanced total carrier generation, the generated carriers can be effectively collected in the proposed nanostructured PSCs. Accordingly, the short-circuit current has risen from 20 mA for planar structure to 25.7 mA for concave and 23.2 mA for trapezoidal PSCs. After analyzing various heights and adopting optimum values, the power conversion efficiency for concave and trapezoidal PSCs experienced substantial increase of 5.5 and 3.5%, compared to the planar structure. These drastic improvements analyzed by coupled optical and electrical modelling of nanostructures can pave the way for further studies to fabricate high efficiency PSCs with nano-textured substrates as a light-trapping technique.