7.379 % Power Conversion Efficiency of a Numerically Simulated Solid-State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell with Copper (I) Thiocyanate as a Hole Conductor

Abstract

Sourcing for an alternative to the liquid electrolyte in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been the subject of interest in the photovoltaic horizon. Herein, we reported by means of simulation, the performance of dye-sensitized solar cell by replacing the liquid electrolyte with a copper (I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) hole conductor. The study was carried out using Solar Capacitance Simulation Software (SCAPS) which is based on poisson and continuity equations. The simulation was done based on an n-i-p proposed architecture of FTO/TiO2/N719/CuSCN/Pt. The result of the initial device gave a Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE), Fill Factor (FF), Short Circuit Current Density (Jsc) and Open Circuit Voltage (Voc) of 5.71 %, 78.32 %, 6.23 mAcm-2, and 1.17 V. After optimizing input parameters to obtain 1×109 cm-2 for CuSCN/N719 interface defect density, 280 K for temperature, 1.0 μm for N719 dye thickness, 0.4 μm for TiO2 thickness, Pt for metal back contact, and 0.2 μm for CuSCN thickness, the overall device performance of 7.379 % for PCE, 77.983 % for FF, 7.185 mAcm-2 for Jsc and 1.317 V for Voc were obtained. When compared with the initial device, the optimized results showed an enhanced performance of ~ 1.29 times, 1.15 times, and 1.13 times in PCE, Jsc, and Voc over the initial device. The results obtained are encouraging and the findings will serve as a baseline to researchers involved in the fabrication of novel high-performance solid-state DSSCs to realize its appealing nature for industry scalability.

Numerical investigation of octakis (4-methoxyphenyl) spiro [fluorene-9, 9′ xanthene]−2, 2′, 7, 7′-tetraamine) (X60) as hole transport layer in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell

“…The J-V characteristic for the initial and optimized structure is shown in figure 14. The photovoltaic performance of our optimized structure is compared to previously published works in table 9 [11,[16][17][18]. Our proposed structure provides encouraging findings, demonstrating that X60 can be employed as a hole transport layer for efficient SSDSSC.…”

“…Table 1 shows the input parameters employed in this numerical study, obtained from the literature [13,[17][18][19]25]. Table 2 presents the X60/N719 defect interface parameters [18,19]. Table 3 lists the back contact parameters used in this simulation [26,27].…”

“…Figure 3 depicts the external quantum efficiency (EQE) for the simulated SSDSSC structure versus wavelength. The EQE of a solar cell is the ratio of electron-hole pairs collected to the number of emitted photons [18]. It can be seen that the SSDSSC's EQE rose from 69.02% at 300 nm to a high of 96.709% at 360 nm before progressively decreasing to 0.0146% for a wavelength value of 540 nm.…”

“…Eli Danladi et al (2022) utilized SCAPS-1D software to simulate a solid-state dyesensitized solar cell with a proposed structure of FTO/TiO 2 /N719/CuSCN/Pt. By optimizing the device structure, they were able to achieve a power conversion efficiency of 7.379% [18].…”

SCAPS-1D simulated organometallic halide perovskites: A comparison of performance under Sub-Saharan temperature condition

“…The thermally induced decrease in the PCE of the FASnI 3 solar cell is mainly attributed to the presence of defect states that create an additional pathway for recombination without emitting photons, which increases the overall recombination rate and may decrease the contribution of radiative recombination. In other words, increasing the rate of recombination has a substantial impact on the carrier concentration, mobility of electrons and holes, and the ability of the electron to reach the depletion region [ 48 , 49 ]. Ultimately, the decrease in V oc and FF facilitates the decrease in the PCE of the device (see Fig.…”