Numerical study of copper antimony sulphide (CuSbS2) solar cell by SCAPS-1D

Copper antimony sulphide thin films are promising, less toxic, and more absorbent material in the world, and they would be good to be applied in photovoltaic energy production. To better operations of copper antimony sulphide (CuSbS2) photovoltaic cells, this paper uses a solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS-1D) to simulate and analyze photovoltaic properties. This article examines different thicknesses of fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO), cadmium sulphide (CdS), carbon (C), and CuSbS2, as well as the defect and dopant concentration in the CuSbS2 photoactive layer of the photovoltaic cell structure glass/FTO/n-CdS/p-CuSbS2/C/Au. Optimum thicknesses of CuSbS2 is 300 nm, carbon hole transport layer (HTL) is 50 nm, and for n-CdS electron transport layer (ETL) is 100 nm, giving open circuit Voltage (Voc) of 0.9389 V, short circuit current density (Jsc) of 28.32 mA/cm2, fill factor (FF) of 60.8% and solar cell efficiency of 16.17%. The increase in defects causes a decrease of carrier lifetime resulting in to decrease in diffusion length and the optimum absorber layer doping concentration was found to be 1018 cm−3

Thickness Dependence of Window Layer on CH3NH3PbI3-XClX Perovskite Solar Cell

CH3NH3PbI3-xClx has been studied experimentally and has shown promising results for photovoltaic application. To enhance its performance, this study investigated the effect of varying thickness of FTO, TiO2, and CH3NH3PbI3-xClx for a perovskite solar cell with the structure glass/FTO/TiO2/CH3NH3PbI3-xClx/Spiro-OMeTAD/Ag studied using SCAPS-1D simulator software. The output parameters obtained from the literature for the device were 26.11 mA/cm2, 1.25 V, 69.89%, and 22.72% for Jsc, Voc, FF, and η, respectively. The optimized solar cell had a thickness of 100 nm, 50 nm, and 300 nm for FTO, TiO2, and CH3NH3PbI3-xClx layers, respectively, and the device output were 25.79 mA/cm2, 1.45 V, 78.87%, and 29.56% for Jsc, Voc, FF, and η, respectively, showing a remarkable increase in FF by 8.98% and 6.84% for solar cell efficiency. These results show the potential of fabricating an improved CH3NH3PbI3-xClx perovskite solar cell

Optical modelling of TCO based FTO/TiO2 multilayer thin films and simulation in hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cell

Hydrogenated Amorphous silicon (a:Si:H) has low amounts of defects making it attractive for photovoltaic applications. To improve power conversion efficiency (PCE) of a:Si:H solar cells, this study investigated the effect of introducing FTO/TiO2 multilayer thin films into its structure to serve as antireflection coating. The multilayer thin films were characterized and optimized by optical simulations using a computer program, GLSIM (glazing simulator). The program was written in FORTRAN and implemented in MATLAB. The multi-Fresnel equations were employed to create the GLSIM program. Then using the program, together with the pairs of real and imaginary values of complex refractive index, n and k respectively, the transmittance and reflectance data of FTO/TiO2 multilayer thin films on glass substrate were computed. The optimized FTO/TiO2 multilayer thin films were then incorporated into silicon solar cell with structure glass/FTO/TiO2/n-a-Si:H/i-a-Si:H/p-a:Si:H/P+-BSF and characterized using SCAPS-1D software. The effect of varying layer thickness on the solar cell performance was also investigated. The optimized solar cell had a thickness of 100 nm, 50 nm, 900 nm, 100 nm, 10μm and 5μm for FTO, TiO2, n-a-Si:H, i-a-Si:H, p-a-Si:H and P+-BSF respectively. The device output performance were 37.96 mA/cm2, 1.34 V, 56.37% and 28.72% for Jsc, Voc, FF and η respectively showing a remarkable improvement in the solar cell performance. These results show potential of fabricating an improved hydrogenated silicon solar cell