Efficient PbS colloidal quantum dot solar cells employing Cu2O as hole transport layer

• Published in: Optical and quantum electronics 2021-08, Vol.53 (8), Article 415
• Main Authors: Prasad, Satyendra, Sadanand, Lohia, Pooja, Dwivedi, D. K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carrier recombination; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Computer Communication Networks; Copper oxides; Doping; Electrical Engineering; Electron transport; Energy conversion efficiency; Lasers; Miniaturization; Optical Devices; Optics; Optimization; Performance evaluation; Photonics; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Quantum dots; Solar cells; Titanium dioxide
• ISSN: 0306-8919; 1572-817X
• DOI: 10.1007/s11082-021-03075-8

The evolution and advancement of novel solar power technologies is considered to be a promising solution towards fulfilling the worldwide demand for energy and electricity. The ability to tune the bandgap by varying the size of the atom has made quantum dot solar cell a potential third generations solar cell device. Quantum dot solar cell has many advantages over other traditional solar cells such as low cost, high efficiency, miniaturization etc. Still the performance of quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs) falls behind due to the carrier recombination within the Quasi-neutral region (QNR). The ETL and HTL are the two-layer that highly impacts the performance of the quantum dot solar cell. Therefore, in this work, performance evaluation of PbS-EDT and Cu 2 O hole transport layer (HTL) is done, achieving a power conversion efficiency (PCE) equal to 15.93 %. The absorber layer used here is treated with tetrabutylammonium iodide (PbS-TBAI) and the electron transport layer (ETL) is TiO 2 . In the initial section of the work, device optimization is done, followed by an in-depth analysis on the doping densities of the ETL and HTL, then a resistance analysis is also presented to show the effect of resistance on the device, and at the end, a solar cell device is finalized with a doping density of 5 × 10 17 cm - 3 for both (ETL and HTL) with the resistance value to be 1 Ohm.cm 2 for series and 10 6 Ohm.cm 2 for a shunt. All the work has been performed using the SCAPS-1D simulator.