Numerical analysis on the use of carbon nanostructures as interlayers to perovskite solar cells using SCAPS-1D

Abstract

Despite the numerous efforts to optimize the performance of perovskite solar cells (PSCs), challenges persist. Carbon materials are promising candidates for this purpose, but identifying the most suitable carbon material and understanding its role in the PSC among the wide family of carbons remains a challenging task. In this study, SCAPS-1D software is employed to optimize the use of carbon materials as interlayers to PSCs. The best configuration of the carbon interlayer and the required physicochemical properties of the carbon materials is identified for improved performance. The simulations show that the insertion of thin carbon interlayers of adequate features in n-i-p stacked cells (FTO/TiO2/MAPbI3/HTL/Ni) can increase the efficiency of the resulting PSCs by over 2.3 %, while significantly improving the open-circuit voltage and the fill factor. These results underline that those carbon materials with optical bandgaps ranging from 3 to 3.5 eV offer the best performance as an interlayer to the hole tranport layer, with negligible impact of the thickness of the interlayer. This contribution offers a novel perspective on the use of carbon materials in PSCs and provides new insights into the understanding of the role of carbon materials as interlayers in PSCs.