
Abstract
The Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator (SCAPS)-1D software is used in this study to find the optimal method to use methyl ammonium tin chloride as the active component in a perovskite solar cell (PSC), which is a new type of solar cell. The structure set up of the PSC as follows: FTO/ETM/CH3NH3SnCl3/HTM/Au. To improve the performance of perovskite solar cells, different electron transport layers (ETLs) are tested such as IGZO, SnO2, TiO2, and ZnO and Spiro-OMeTAD, NiO, Cu2O, and CuO as Hole Transport Layers (HTLs). Our findings indicate that among these ETLs, SnO2 shows the highest potential for achieving high power conversion efficiency (η) when combined with Spiro-OMeTAD as the HTLs. Furthermore, the total defect density (Nt) is studied in perovskite solar cell, keeping the Nt of the first two layers constant and varying the Nt in the third layer. Our results show that the PSC are excellent performance; it is best to have the Nt of 1014 cm-3 for SnO2, 107 cm-3 for CH3NH3SnCl3, and 106 cm-3 for SpiroOMeTAD. These effect values have boosted the efficiency of converting power, up to 13.68% with an open circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.6V. This progress is to enhance the performance of environmentally friendly, lead-free solar cells that utilize tin-based perovskite materials.
Experimentally, the two techniques (co-precipitation and solvo-themal) are used to synthesize pure and 4% copper-doped SnO2 as ETL. The X-ray diffraction patterns revealed that the films synthesized using both methods have a crystalline structure with a tetragonal arrangement. Additionally, it demonstrated that adding a 4% Cu doping concentration reduces the crystal size in both methods. The optical results indicate adequate transmission in the central range of the visible spectrum. Calculations were performed to find the energy gap of pure SnO2 in both techniques to be 3.85 eV and 4.17 eV, respectively. When 4% Cu was added to SnO2, the band gap energy decreased to 3.75 eV and 3.9 eV and the particle size decreases, as demonstrated by FESEM. The EDX spectroscopy images revealed that the synthesized nanoparticles consisted of copper, oxygen, and tin. The analysis of functional groups using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra and the roughness analysis using atomic force microscopy (AFM) images showed a decrease in roughness from 46.1 nm to 12.3 nm in doped samples prepared by solvo-thermal synthesis, compared to those synthesized by the co-precipitation technique from 4.7 nm to 0.3 nm. We discovered that Cu plays an essential role in reducing nanocrystalline SnO2 particle sizes. In addition, the solvo-thermal technique is more impressive than co-precipitation in the synthesis of tin oxide nanostructure. The current density-voltage (J-V) are investigated for characterization of devices by using different methods. The Cu-doped SnO2 using the solvo thermal technique had a higher current density (5.13 mA/cm2) and an open circuit voltage (0.6 volts). It also had a higher power conversion efficiency (2.5%) when the sun simulator was the same.