Performance Analysis of CH3NH3PBL3 Perovskite Based Solar Cell with all-Metal-Oxide Transport Layers

Abstract

Due to cheap and simple solution processed fabrication feasibility, excellent electrical and optical properties as well as thinness, semi-transparency and flexibility, organic inorganic perovskites like CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI3) have recently been unfolded as one of the most promising contender of third generation solar cells. Starting in 2009 with only 3% power conversion efficiency (PCE), perovskite solar cells have achieved over 22% PCE in the recent times thanks to rigorous research interest both in academic and industry level. To avail flexible configurations, perovskite solar cell structure has been evolved from mesoscopic to planar because of flexible substrates lower transition temperature. Furthermore, due to low cost fabrication, higher mobility and above all, proper bad alignment, transparent / high bandgap metal oxides have been studied of late to replace conventionally used electron transport materials (ETM) like TiO2 and hole transport materials (HTM) like organic Spiro OMeTAD or PEDOT:PSS. In this work, MAPbI3 perovskite solar cell (inverted planar structure) is studied in details for all-metal-oxide transport layers using SCAPS 1D simulation software. ZnO and SnO2 along with TiO2 are chosen as ETMs for cells with NiOx and Cu2O as HTMs owing to their better band alignment, higher mobility and carrier concentration. The study mainly focused on the comparative performance of these three ETMs. Variation of perovskite layer thickness, perovskite bulk defect density and perovskite-ETM interface states are included thoroughly for this contrasting simulation based study. It is found that these metal oxides can be considered potential and for some cases, better contender as transport layers for planar perovskite solar cells to move towards flexible configurations.