Low-cost, stable all-inorganic charge transporting layer based FAPI perovskite solar cells achieving ≈ 26% efficiency using SCAPS-1D

Abstract

The superior opto-electronic properties of metal halide perovskites have uncovered great potential as light harvesters for thin-film photovoltaics, capturing the dominant research trend for over a decade now. While Perovskite Solar Cells (PSCs) depict promising results of a successful photovoltaic technology, further replacement of conventional charge transporting layers (CTLs) with inorganic counterparts can impart sustainable device stability and cost-effectiveness. Here, we represent a theoretical study aimed to analyse the performance of Formamidinium Lead Iodide (FAPI) based PSCs using SCAPS-1D simulation tool (version 3.3.09). The solar cell is designed into a novel, and cost-effective inverted p-i-n architecture comprising of inorganic transporting layers. The introduction of a thin CuI buffer layer accompanied with the hole transporting layer (HTL) was found to boost the device performance greatly. Furthermore, a systematic analysis of the device parameters was carried out based on crucial factors like thickness of the absorber, CTLs, and buffer layer, interfacial defect densities (Nit), series resistances (RS) and working temperature (T). In addition to this, we also conducted a study on the combined effect of absorber defect density (Nt) and thickness on our simulated PSC. Our optimized device configuration ITO/CuI/Cu2O/FAPI/ZnO/Al, resulted in an ideal device efficiency of ≈ 26% and a reasonably high efficiency of 21.58% adopting a more realistic approach. This study therefore focuses on an economical architectural design strategy with an emphasis on device efficiency, and its long-term sustainability.