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Design and Simulation of Perovskite Solar Cells
Design and Simulation of Perovskite Solar Cells
Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener
Design and simulation of perovskite solar cells based on graphene and TiO2/ T
graphene nanocomposite as electron transport layer
Mehran Dadashbeika, Davood Fathia, , Mehdi Eskandarib
⁎
a
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University (TMU), Tehran, Iran
b
Nanomaterial Research Group, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR) on TMU, Tehran, Iran
Keywords: In recent years, investigation on utilizing perovskite solar cells (PSCs) has become widespread and much re-
Perovskite solar cell (PSC) searches have been conducted to increase the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and sustainability of this type of
Electron transport layer (ETL) solar cell. In this research, the effects of graphene (Gr) and TiO2/Gr nanocomposite as the electron transport
Hole transport layer (HTL) layer (ETL) on the absorption, carriers generation and recombination, carrier transport, short-circuit current
Graphene (Gr)
density (Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc) and PCE are investigated. For this purpose, a three-dimensional (3D)
Nanocopmposite
TiO2
finite element method (FEM) technique is utilized. Using the monolayer Gr ETL, the absorption in the active
layer enhances and Jsc increases from 19.07 to 21.73 mA/cm2. Meanwhile, Voc decreases from 0.99 to 0.89 V
because of the recombination at the interface of active layer and ETL. Utilizing TiO2/Gr nanocomposite as the
ETL can improve carrier transport in this layer and increases Voc from 0.99 to 1.15 V whereas Jsc is reduced
compared to the case when TiO2 was placed as the ETL. This reduction is attributed to the delivery of less light to
the active layer. In the optimal case (TiO2/Gr(10%) nanocomposite), the PCE is 17.01. To further improve cell
efficiency, the three HTLs CuSCN, Cu2O and NiO were placed in the cell structure and compared with each other,
which the PCE of PSC yields were 17.01%, 17.81% and 17.94%, respectively. This means that the PCE has been
increased by about 24%.
1. Introduction ETM (Sardashti et al., 2017). Among many factors affecting the per-
formance of PSCs, the interface between the electron transport layer
Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are a new class of solar cells that were (ETL) and the perovskite layer has attracted much attention owing to its
first introduced in 2009 and have made significant progress in recent significant role in electron collection and thus determining PSC per-
years. A recent research study shows that the power conversion effi- formance (Wang et al., 2019). ETL in PSCs are usually metal oxides
ciency (PCE) of a PSC increased from 3.8% to 25.2% and the cost of such as TiO2, ZnO, SnO2, Al2O3, Nb2O5, Zn2SnO4 and WO3 (Hsu et al.,
manufacturing decreased compared to other solar cells. 2014; Ke et al., 2015; Qiu et al., 2014; Subbiah et al., 2017). Among the
A conventional structure for perovskite is described as ABX3, where materials listed, TiO2 is the common ETL material used in highly effi-
A and B are cations of different sizes and X is an anion that provides the cient PSCs owing to its suitable conduction band, facial and variable
charge balance for the cations. Among various halide perovskites, the deposition methods, chemical stability, and low cost (Ren et al., 2019;
iodide-based structure shows much better electronic and optoelectronic Yang et al., 2017; Ren et al., 2016; Qi et al., 2015; Tavakoli et al.,
properties because of having a higher diffusion length, carrier mobility, 2018).
and optical absorption. However, these PSCs have their own limita- However, such materials still require high-temperature processing
tions, with the degradation of device performance being the most im- to increase their crystallinity and achieve suitably high charge carrier
portant one (Iftiquar et al., 2017). The PSC structure is formed by mobility (Ong et al., 2007). High-temperature sintering has several
placing the perovskite material between electron transporting material drawbacks because it results in higher costs and slower production.
(ETM) and hole transporting material (HTM). The ETM and HTM layers Moreover, solid temperature-resilient substrates prevent its use with
play a vital role in device performance (Iftiquar and Yi, 2016; plastic and malleable metal foils and multi-junction device archi-
Mohammadi et al., 2020). The formation of exciton in PSCs can occur tectures (Beiley and McGehee, 2012).
by injecting a photogenerated hole into the HTM and electron into the Meanwhile, advances in graphene (Gr) studies have led to numerous
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: d.fathi@modares.ac.ir (D. Fathi).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2020.06.102
Received 8 May 2020; Received in revised form 17 June 2020; Accepted 29 June 2020
0038-092X/ © 2020 International Solar Energy Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Dadashbeik, et al. Solar Energy 207 (2020) 917–924
fundamental breakthroughs. This an atom-thickness two-dimensional εr is the relative permittivity which is a function of the wavelength (λ).
(2D) material has many unique properties including remarkably high To study and simulate the electromagnetic wave propagation in the
charge mobility, electronic conductivity, and optical transmission (Ito structure, it is necessary to apply two parameters for all layers in the
et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2008; Novoselov and Geim, 2007; Morozov optical model: (i) the refractive index n(λ) and (ii) the extinction
et al., 2008; Nair et al., 2008). Using Gr as the ETL can increase the coefficient k(λ). For this purpose, the complex refractive indexes of
absorption of light in the active layer, resulting in a short-circuit current FTO, CuSCN, NiO, Cu2O, TiO2, CH3NH3PbI3, Au, Gr and TiO2/Gr na-
density (Jsc) in the PSC. But, on the other hand, due to the re- nocomposite as a function of wavelength (λ) were taken from pre-
combination interfaces of carriers, the carrier transport is not per- viously measured data (Mohammadi et al., 2020; Rani et al., 2010;
formed properly, which results in lower open-circuit voltage (Voc). Hirasawa et al., 1994; Zhang et al., 2016; Stoumpos et al., 2013; Kim
TiO2/Gr nanocomposite with various weight ratios of Gr can also be et al., 2012; Tang et al., 2017). The electric field in the whole structure
used as an ETL. In this nanocomposite, due to the increased electrical is calculated using Eq. (1). Then, using a known amount of E, the photo-
conductivity and mobility of the carrier, as a result of the addition of generation rate can be calculated using
Gr, the carrier transfer and transport is better than that of TiO2 layer
|E|2
alone (Wang et al., 2013). There are various synthesis methods for the Gph = ,
2h (2)
TiO2/Gr nanocomposite such as simple liquid-phase deposition method,
thermal hydrolysis of suspension, simple wet impregnation method, where h is the Plank’s constant and ε” is the imaginary part of εr. We
microwave-hydrothermal treatment, simple solvothermal method, and apply this equation for the visible wavelength range (300–800 nm), in
modified hydrothermal method (Zhang et al., 2011; Štengl et al., 2013; which only three layers of ETL, active layer and HTL have been con-
Tan et al., 2015; Xiang et al., 2011; Tan et al., 2013; Shen et al., 2011). sidered. For this simulation, a plane wave source was considered as an
Device simulation gives a better description of the physical me- input of the proposed device. The standard AM1.5G was used as an
chanism in solar cells. In this work, we present a three-dimensional input power of plane wave source. The Floquet periodic boundary
(3D) PSC simulation based on the finite-element method (FEM). The condition (PBC) was applied to all layer sides of PSC except the back
FEM is a numerical method to estimate boundary value problems for reflector (Au). To consider the reflected unabsorbed photons from the
partial differential equations (PDEs) (Logan, 2011). Au interface, the perfect electric conductor (PEC) was used as a
boundary condition for this layer. The total generation rate can be
2. Theory and modeling calculated with the integration of Gph (λ) over the wavelength range, as
max
Fig. 1 shows how the layers are arranged in a PSC which consists Gt = Gph ( ) d ,
(from bottom to up) of an Au layer as the back reflector, p-type material min (3)
as the hole transport layer (HTL), an intrinsic layer (i-layer) of per-
where λmin = 300 nm and λmax = 800 nm.
ovskite (CH3NH3PbI3) as the active layer, a TiO2 n-type material as the
electron transport layer (ETL), the fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) as the
transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer, and finally air. 2.2. Electrical model
In general, a combined optical-electrical model was considered to
extract the important characteristics of PSC. In this section, the carrier density is calculated for evaluating J-V
characteristics in the PSC. For this purpose, the Poisson and continuity
equations for electrons and holes are solved in the ETL, the HTL and the
2.1. Optical model
active layer, as
This model is used to calculate the electric field, absorption, and .( 0 r )= (4)
photogeneration rate.
In the optical part, the Helmholtz equation derived from Maxwell’s n 1
= j + Gn Un
equation was solved in the frequency domain. This equation is ex- t q n (5)
pressed as follows:
p 1
= j + Gp Up,
×( × E) k02 r E = 0 (1) t q p (6)
where E is the electric field intensity, k0 is the vaccum wave-vector and where ε0 is the vacuum permittivity, φ is the electrostatic potential, q is
the charge of electron, Un and Up are the recombination rates of elec-
trons and holes, respectively, Gn and Gp are the total carrier generation
rates for electrons and holes, respectively, which were calculated in the
optical part (Eq. (3)), and ρ is the charge density which is defined as
= q (n p + NA ND ), (7)
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M. Dadashbeik, et al. Solar Energy 207 (2020) 917–924
Table 1
The electrical parameters of PSC.
Parameter perovskite CuSCN Cu2O NiO TiO2 Gr TiO2/Gr5(%) TiO2/Gr10(%) TiO2/Gr20(%)
where n1 and p1 are the electron and hole densities when the quasi- various parts of the PSC structure in the wavelength range of
Fermi level matches the trapped energy, τn and τp are the lifetimes of 300–800 nm. As this figure shows, each layer (ITO, TiO2, Perovskite
electron and hole, respectively. Also, for the FTO and Au contacts, and HTL) absorbs part of the sunlight power in this range. Fig. 3a shows
ohmic and Schottky contact conditions were used, respectively. The the reflected and absorbed light by the structure, where TiO2 with a
surface recombination velocities of electrons and holes are set as thickness of 50 nm is used as the ETL. As can be seen from this figure,
Sn = Sp = 107 cm/s (Rani et al., 2010). All the numerical parameters some of the light is absorbed by the ETL at the wavelengths of
used in the equations for the electrical model are given in Table 1 300–400 nm, and most of the light is absorbed by the active layer which
(Hirasawa et al., 1994; Zhang et al., 2016; Stoumpos et al., 2013; Kim plays a major role in the generation of electron-hole pairs. Fig. 3b shows
et al., 2012; Tang et al., 2017; Minemoto and Murata, 2014; Zhou et al., the area absorption with monolayer Gr as the ETL. Comparing these
2016; Jaffe et al., 2010; Pattanasattayavong et al., 2013; Gavrilov et al., two figures reveals that the absorption of light in the active layer is
2009; Grätzel, 2001; Liu et al., 2014; Du et al., 2017; Patel and Tyagi, greater when Gr is placed as the ETL.
2017; Gong et al., 2015; Bhaumik et al., 2017; Limmer et al., 2013; Optically, monolayer Gr has slight absorption and absorbs only
Huang et al., 2018; Hamandi et al., 2017; Rathod and Waghuley, 2016; about 2.3% of incoming light. When Gr is put into the PSC structure as
Stengl et al., 2011). the ETL, it transfers light to the active layer more than TiO2 ETL, which
consequently leads to the increase in carrier generation and the Jsc in
comparison with the TiO2 ETL.
3. Results and discussion Electrically, since the Gr work function is about 4.4 eV, it has a
suitable band matching with Perovskite and FTO. As a result, electrons
In the PSC structure, a transparent contact is considered as the can be easily transferred from perovskite to Gr and from Gr to FTO.
substrate. Then, the ETL, the active layer, and the HTL are stacked on it Fig. 4 presents the band diagram energy level and carrier transport
respectively, in the order of their appearance. Finally, a metal contact is mechanism in the PSC in the presence of Gr as the ETL. Obviously, the
placed on the HTL as a back reflector. The structure simulated in this perovskite valence band is lower than the Gr work function, and some
study has a width of 250 nm and a depth of 250 nm. It consists of 5 holes that reach the valence band of the active layer do not face the
layers including FTO (50 nm), TiO2 (50 nm), CH3NH3PBI3 (300 nm), potential barrier at the interface of active layer and ETL. Therefore,
HTL (400 nm) and gold (100 nm). When the cell is exposed to light, a holes can also flow from the perovskite valence band to Gr which causes
part of it is reflected but most of the incoming light is absorbed by the recombination directly between electrons and holes in Gr, leading to a
active layer. Fig. 2 illustrates how the PSC works. In the PSC, light is decrease in Voc.
absorbed by perovskite and thus pairs of electrons and holes are gen- Fig. 5 illustrates the characteristics of current and dark current
erated in the conduction and valence bands, respectively. The electrons densities of the PSC with TiO2 and Gr as the ETLs. Utilizing Gr in the
are transferred from the conduction band of the active layer to the PSC structure – due to the high mobility of carriers and suitable pla-
conduction band of the ETL, while the holes are transferred from the cement of energy level with the active layer – can facilitate the transfer
valence band of the perovskite to the valence band of the HTL. Fig. 3 of electrons from the active layer to the ETL and thus increase of Voc.
shows the total reflectance and area absorption spectra related to
Fig. 2. The performance and layers band diagram energy levels of PSC.
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M. Dadashbeik, et al. Solar Energy 207 (2020) 917–924
Fig. 3. The total reflectance and area absorption spectra and reflectance of the PSC structure with (a) TiO2 as the ETL and (b) Gr as the ETL.
Fig. 5. The characteristics of (a) dark current density and (b) current density; with TiO2 and Gr ETLs.
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M. Dadashbeik, et al. Solar Energy 207 (2020) 917–924
Fig. 6. The comparison between TiO2 and TiO2/Gr nanocomposite ETLs for (a) the ETL absorption and (b) the active layer absorption; with the Gr weith ratios of 5%,
10% and 20%.
Fig. 7. The comparison between TiO2 and TiO2/Gr nanocomposite ETLs for (a) the generation profile and (b) the generation at the wavelengths of active layer.
Table 2 transport in this layer. Because the carrier mobility in TiO2 is low, the
Jsc, Voc, PCE, and FF of PSC with different ETLs. addition of Gr to TiO2 makes electrons pass the ETL faster than before
Parameter TiO2 Gr TiO2/Gr(5%) TiO2/Gr(10%) TiO2/Gr(20%)
and transfer to FTO. Accordingly, the electron transport in the TiO2/Gr
nanocomposite ETL is better than TiO2 and Gr alone as the ETLs. As the
Jsc (mA/cm2) 19.07 21.73 17.32 17.69 17.10 Gr weight ratio increases, the carrier transport is also improved. Table 2
Voc (V) 0.99 0.89 1.05 1.14 1.15 shows the cell photovoltaic parameters with different ETLs.
FF (%) 76.3 82.8 82.1 84.3 83.7
Fig. 8 shows the characteristics of current and dark current densities
PCE (%) 14.42 16.03 14.93 17.01 16.47
of the PSC with different materials as the ETLs. As expected, the carrier
transport and transfer were improved in cases 1, 2 and 3 compared to
case 1 (TiO2/Gr(5%)) occurs more than case 2 (TiO2/Gr(10%)), and in the other cases (using Gr and TiO2 as the ETLs). The improvement of the
case 2 more than case 3 (TiO2/Gr(20%)). However, for the wavelengths dark current actually indicates a reduction of the leakage current in the
of 400 to 800 nm, as the Gr weight ratio increases, the absorption in the PSC and an increase in the PSC conductivity. Therefore, the FF is in-
ETL increases, as well. As the Gr weight ratio in the TiO2/Gr nano- creased, leading to an increase in the PCE.
composite increases, the ETL energy bandgap becomes narrower and As shown in Fig. 8b, the dark current density with the Gr ETL is
the ETL absorbs a wider range of light wavelengths. Consequently, the lower than those of all other ETLs, due to the recombination in the Gr
light absorption in the ETL at case 3 is larger than in cases 1 and 2, ETL. Also, the dark current density with the TiO2 ETL is lower than that
suggesting a lower light absorption in the active layer. Therefore, ac- of TiO2/Gr nanocomposite with various Gr weith ratios, probably due
cording to E. (2), the carrier generation rate must also be lower. No- to the low mobility of electrons in TiO2. Among nanocomposite ETLs,
tably, with the addition of Gr to TiO2, although the carrier generation in TiO2/Gr(20%) has a higher carrier mobility and thus a better carrier
the active layer is reduced, carrier generation occurs in the ETL. Ac- transport.
cording to Fig. 7a, by comparing the three cases of TiO2/Gr nano- The HTL can also play an important role in optimizing the PCE of a
composite ETL with different Gr weight ratios (5%, 10%, and 20%), the PSC. In addition to the optimization of layer thickness, the material
highest Jsc will be achieved when the TiO2/Gr(10%) nanocomposite is used as the HTL was also investigated. In this study, the three HTLs
utilized as the ETL. CuSCN, Cu2O and NiO have been investigated, which NiO has the
Furthermore, the increase of Gr weight ratio in the TiO2/Gr nano- highest Jsc. To validate these results, the electric field characteristics
composite increases the conductivity of ETL and improves the carrier versus the wavelength is made. Fig. 9a shows the electric field
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M. Dadashbeik, et al. Solar Energy 207 (2020) 917–924
Fig. 8. The characteristics of (a) current density and (b) dark current density; with different materials as the ETLs.
Fig. 9. (a) electric field versus wavelength, (b) generation rate in PSC for various HTLs.
Fig. 10. (a) dark current density and (b) current density versus voltage in PSC with varous HTL.
characteristics versus the wavelength for various HTLs. When NiO is electric model. First, in order to evaluate the carriers’ transfer and re-
used as the HTL, the electric field inside the active layer increases. This combination, the cell dark current is obtained in the presence of three
behavior is attributed to the increased reflection of incoming light at different HTLs. According to Fig. 10a, it is demonstrated that no sig-
the boundary between the active layer and the HTL. Therefore, ac- nificant change is observed in the dark current for various HTLs. This
cording to Eq. (2), it is expected that the amount of carrier generation indicates that the carriers transfer and recombination rates in the PSC in
rate in the active layer will be increased (Fig. 9b). the presence of these three different HTLs are not significant. Finally,
Then, CuSCN, Cu2O and NiO as the HTLs were examined in the the J-V curves are obtained for different HTL materials, which are
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