Comprehensive device modelling and performance analysis of MASnI3 based perovskite solar cells with diverse ETM, HTM and back metal contacts

Abstract Perovskite materials can be considered as the backbone of photovoltaic industry owing to their remarkable electronic, optical, mechanical and electrical properties. In this work, the performance of lead-free methyl ammonium tin iodide (MASnI3) based perovskite solar cells with TiO2, PCBM, ZnO, C60, SnO2 and IGZO as Electron Transport Materials (ETMs), Cu2O, CuSCN, CuSbS2, P3HT, PEDOT: PSS, NiO, CuO, CuI and SpiroMeOTAD as Hole Transport Materials (HTMs) and Au, W, Ni, Pd, Pt, Se, Ag, Cu, C and Fe as back contact metals is simulated using SCAPS 1D software package. The thickness, total defect density, shallow uniform acceptor density, valence band effective density and conduction band effective density of the absorber layer (MASnI3) are varied for each of the various possible layer configurations with the above mentioned ETMs, HTMs and back contact metals. After analysing various solar cell configurations, it is seen that Glass/FTO/PCBM/MASnI3/CuI/Au exhibits optimum performance with a Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) of 25.05%, Fill Factor (FF) of 69.23%, a short circuit current density (JSC) of 34.26863 mA/cm2 and an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 1.0557 V. The solar cell configurations Glass/FTO/IGZO/MASnI3/CuSbS2/W and Glass/FTO/PCBM/MASnI3/SpiroMeOTAD/Pd have a PCE of 24.94% each. The study on thermal stability shows that these device configurations are stable at 300 K.