Design and simulation of a highly efficient CuBi2O4 thin-film solar cell with hole transport layer

Abstract

The advancement of thin-film photovoltaic technologies is increasing extensively in today’s world owing to their outstanding optical properties, simple fabrication process, and low-cost. In this work, a solar cell capacitance simulator in one-dimension (SCAPS-1D) has been used to evaluate the output parameters of the heterojunction CuBi2O4-based solar cells with various hole transport layers (HTLs). It is revealed that a p-type cuprous oxide (Cu2O) semiconductor as an HTL ensures proper band alignment at Cu2O/CuBi2O4 interface. The recombination due to minority electrons at the rear side of the CuBi2O4 solar structure with Cu2O HTL can be diminished notably than the device with other HTLs, thus improving the overall outputs of the suggested Cu2O/CuBi2O4/CdS/FTO heterostructure. To realize the behaviors of the proposed PV cell, the thickness and carrier concentration of various films, bulk defects, interface defects, cell resistances, and rear electrode work function of the anticipated CuBi2O4 thin-film photovoltaic device have been optimized. The recombination rates at the interfaces in the proposed heterostructure are also calculated. Moreover, to outline the effects of device input parameters of various materials on vital PV output parameters, adaptable machine learning algorithms have been used to train, test, and calculate the output datasets. High accuracy and low error metrics are confirmed for both the train and test datasets. With 1.0 μm absorber thickness, the efficiency of 29.2% with open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.02 V, short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 32.49 mA/cm2, and fill factor (FF) of 87.91% is found for the anticipated solar cell. This investigation suggests that the Cu2O can be effectively employed to scheme a highly efficient, stable, and economical CuBi2O4 solar device.