Numerical investigation of solar cells based on hybrid organic cation perovskite with inorganic HTL via SCAPS-1D

Among the major problems hindering the performance and commercialisation of conventional MAPbI3 solar cells are thermal instability, degradation, defects and the high cost of Spiro-OMeTAD HTL. However, the hybrid or mixed organic cation perovskite (MA1-xFAxPbI3) has good crystallinity which can reduce defects and increase the charge carrier lifetime. The aim of this work is to find, by numerical simulation using SCAPS-1D software, a better substitute for organic Spiro-OMeTAD HTL in order to solve the problems caused by it. First, we validated our solar cell structures by a comparative study of the J-V characteristics of the experiment and the simulation. Secondly, we conducted a numerical simulation study of a number of inorganic HTLs (NiO, CuI, CuSCN, MoO3, and Cu2O) that replace Spiro-OMeTAD in the hybrid organic cation perovskite cell structure. Based on the study of the performance and stability of these different HTLs, we obtain Cu2O HTL as the best candidate to substitute the organic Spiro-OMeTAD HTL. The MA1-xFAxPbI3-based solar cell with Cu2O as inorganic HTL shows a very good stability (TC = -0.0014%/°C) and better performance with an efficiency of 26.67%. This work contributes to a better knowledge on the numerical optimization of perovskite-based solar cells.