Efficiency of all-perovskite two-terminal tandem solar cells: A drift-diffusion study

Abstract

Organic-inorganic (hybrid) perovskite semiconductors offer a wide range of bandgaps, low-cost deposition, and wide optical absorption, making them an ideal candidate for new photovoltaic devices. All-perovskite two terminal (2T) tandem solar cells have the potential to achieve high efficiency and at the same time offer cost-effective fabrication. In a 2T tandem cell, it is needed to optimize various device parameters such as bandgaps and thicknesses of the subcells, in order to make the best use of the available solar spectrum. In this study, we propose a drift-diffusion (DD) simulation model to optimize the bandgaps and thicknesses of the top and bottom cells in all-perovskite 2T tandem solar cell. Using our simulation model, we investigated the effect of interface and bulk traps, mobility, doping of the charge transport layers and contact workfunctions to the power conversion efficiency. We calculated up to 36.6% efficiency for an ideal device. We found that the traps at the interfaces and in the bulk perovskite films are the most important factor hampering the tandem cell efficiency. We predicted up to 29.8% efficiency for a device with recombination losses. By changing the mobility in the active material of the bottom cell we found that, the mobility plays an important role in determining the optimum thicknesses of the top and the bottom cells. Optimizing cathode workfunctions leads to a 3–4% improvement in the efficiency. Our study will help to understand the role of various factors limiting tandem cell efficiency and ways to optimize the device parameters to ensure the best performing all-perovskite 2T tandem solar cell.