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

Davoud Dastan; Mustafa K A Mohammed; Ali K Al-Mousoi; Anjan Kumar; Sinan Q Salih; P S JosephNg; Duha S Ahmed; Rahul Pandey; Zaher Mundher Yaseen; M Khalid Hossain

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-36427-3

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

Sci Rep. 2023 Jun 5;13(1):9076. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-36427-3.

Authors

Davoud Dastan¹, Mustafa K A Mohammed^#², Ali K Al-Mousoi^#³, Anjan Kumar⁴, Sinan Q Salih⁵, P S JosephNg⁶, Duha S Ahmed⁷, Rahul Pandey^#⁸, Zaher Mundher Yaseen^{9

10}, M Khalid Hossain¹¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA.
² University of Warith Al-Anbiyaa, 56001, Karbala, Iraq. mustafa_kareem@yahoo.com.
³ Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Al-Iraqia University, Baghdad, 10011, Iraq.
⁴ Solar Lab, GLA University, Mathura, 281406, India.
⁵ Technical College of Engineering, Al-Bayan University, Baghdad, 10011, Iraq.
⁶ Faculty of Data Science & Information Technology, INTI International University, Persiaran Perdana BBN, 71800, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. joseph.ng@newinti.edu.my.
⁷ Applied Sciences Department, University of Technology-Iraq, Baghdad, 10011, Iraq.
⁸ VLSI Centre of Excellence, Chitkara University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Rajpura, Punjab, 140417, India.
⁹ Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia.
¹⁰ Interdisciplinary Research Center for Membranes and Water Security, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia.
¹¹ Institute of Electronics. Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, Dhaka, 1349, Bangladesh.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

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 (In₂S₃)-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/In₂S₃/MAPbI₃/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 MAPbI₃ 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.