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Effects of electron transport layer type on the performance of Pb-free Cs2AgBiBr6 double perovskites: a SCAPS-1D solar simulator–based study

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Abstract

Recently, due to the superior stability and lower risk of toxicity, the development of Pb-free halide double perovskite materials has revived excellent interest. In this work, Pb-free perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with ITO/ETL/Cs2AgBiBr6/Cu2O/Au multilayer structures with Cs2AgBiBr6 double perovskite as the solar light absorber layer, some electron transport layers (ETLs) and Cu2O as a hole transport layer have been introduced. Then, the effects of various thicknesses of the absorber layer and also ETL materials, like ZnO, C60, CdS, SnO2, phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), and TiO2, on the device performance (including photoelectronic conversion efficiency (PCE), fill factor (FF%), short circuit current density (Jsc), and open-circuit voltage (VOC)) were examined with the help of a solar cell simulator (SCAPS-1D). It is noteworthy that, in the case of all ETL materials, the optimal thickness of the absorber layer was determined to be 400 nm. Then, the maximum PCE values of 20.08%, 17.63%, 14.07%, 12.11%, 14.94%, and 18.83% were obtained for the solar cells containing ZnO, C60, CdS, SnO2, PCBM, and TiO2 as the ETL, respectively. These results show that designing/developing Pb-free halide double perovskite devices having comparable PCEs with the Pb-based PSCs is feasible, provided that proper/compatible materials will be used in the multilayer structure of the next generations of solar cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Science, University of Maragheh, P.O. Box 55181-83111, Maragheh, Iran

    Masood Mehrabian

  2. Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Maryam Taleb-Abbasi

  3. Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, P.O. Box 11155-9161, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

    Omid Akhavan

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  1. Masood Mehrabian
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  2. Maryam Taleb-Abbasi
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  3. Omid Akhavan
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Conceptualization: MM; methodology: MM, MT-A; investigation: MM, MT-A, OA; formal analysis and investigation: MM, MT-A, OA; writing—original draft preparation: MM, MT-A, OA; writing—review and editing: MM, OA; resources: MM, OA; supervision: MM, OA. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Omid Akhavan.

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Mehrabian, ., Taleb-Abbasi, M. & Akhavan, O. Effects of electron transport layer type on the performance of Pb-free Cs2AgBiBr6 double perovskites: a SCAPS-1D solar simulator–based study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 118754–118763 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30732-0

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