Ultrathin transparent indium tin oxide-based electrodes for enhanced performance of perovskite solar cells

Abstract Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been given much attention in photovoltaics-based power generation, particularly in building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) applications due to their lightweight and promising technical performance. PSCs exhibit remarkable transparency to visible light, which makes them an ideal candidate for BIPV applications such as glass-based solar facades and clear solar windows. As the PSC is yet an immature technology, much research is still required to validate its visibility and cost-effectiveness for different applications including electrical vehicles. This paper takes one step forward in achieving this goal by presenting a new ultrathin transparent electrodes (UTE) design that comprises a square patch layout to improve the performance of transparent conductive materials. The proposed electrode design is aimed to improve the absorption of the material in the ultra-violet (UV) region with high optical transparency. To assess the angular dependence on the absorption characteristics, both transverse magnetic and transverse electric modes are studied at various oblique angles of incident light. Furthermore, interference theory is applied numerically to validate the proposed UTE design. The impact of various geometric parameters including period, ground height, spacer height, and top square resonator length on the performance of the proposed UTE layout is investigated through detailed simulation analysis. Moreover, surface electric field patterns are analyzed to understand the absorption mechanism of the proposed UTE. Results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed structure for various BIPV applications including electric vehicles, wearable electronics, and tandem devices.