Insights into the photovoltaic properties of indium sulfide as an electron transport material in perovskite solar cells

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 9076
• Main Authors: Dastan, Davoud, Mohammed, Mustafa K. A., Al-Mousoi, Ali K., Kumar, Anjan, Salih, Sinan Q., JosephNg, P. S., Ahmed, Duha S., Pandey, Rahul, Yaseen, Zaher Mundher, Hossain, M. Khalid
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 05-06-2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301; 639/301/1005; 639/4077; Capacitance; Electron transport; Humanities and Social Sciences; Indium; multidisciplinary; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Solar cells; Sulfides
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36427-3

According to recent reports, planar structure-based organometallic perovskite solar cells (OPSCs) have achieved remarkable power conversion efficiency (PCE), making them very competitive with the more traditional silicon photovoltaics. A complete understanding of OPSCs and their individual parts is still necessary for further enhancement in PCE. In this work, indium sulfide (In
2
S
3
)-based planar heterojunction OPSCs were proposed and simulated with the SCAPS (a Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator)-1D programme. Initially, OPSC performance was calibrated with the experimentally fabricated architecture (FTO/In
2
S
3
/MAPbI
3
/Spiro-OMeTAD/Au) to evaluate the optimum parameters of each layer. The numerical calculations showed a significant dependence of PCE on the thickness and defect density of the MAPbI
3
absorber material. The results showed that as the perovskite layer thickness increased, the PCE improved gradually but subsequently reached a maximum at thicknesses greater than 500 nm. Moreover, parameters involving the series resistance as well as the shunt resistance were recognized to affect the performance of the OPSC. Most importantly, a champion PCE of over 20% was yielded under the optimistic simulation conditions. Overall, the OPSC performed better between 20 and 30 °C, and its efficiency rapidly decreases above that temperature.