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Nickel sulphide-carbon composite hole transporting material for (CH3NH3PbI3) planar heterojunction perovskite solar cell

Pitchaiya, Selvakumar; Natarajan, Muthukumarasamy; Santhanam, Agilan; Ramakrishnan, Venkatraman Madurai; Asokan, Vijayshankar; Palanichamy, Pavithrakumar; Rangasamy, Balasundaraprabhu; Sundaram, Senthilarasu; Velauthapillai, Dhayalan

Authors

Selvakumar Pitchaiya

Muthukumarasamy Natarajan

Agilan Santhanam

Venkatraman Madurai Ramakrishnan

Vijayshankar Asokan

Pavithrakumar Palanichamy

Balasundaraprabhu Rangasamy

Dhayalan Velauthapillai



Abstract

The present work reports about the low-cost inorganic nickel sulphide-carbon composite synthesized using the simple chemical method and to be used as hybrid hole extraction and as a counter electrode material for perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3)-based solar cells (PSCs). The structural analysis confirms the existence of nickel sulphide (NiS) crystalline phase composed of small-sized crystallites. The optimal bandgap values of the prepared perovskite (1.51 eV) and NiS (3.71 eV) materials found to be favorable in achieving the active absorbing and hole extraction properties in PSCs. The surface morphology of the nickel sulphide materials is found to be highly dependent on the NiS-carbon composition. The current density-voltage (J-V) results of the fabricated perovskite solar cells with nickel sulphide-carbon composite hole transporting layer (HTL) suggests that incorporation of commercial carbon paste into the nickel sulphide nanoparticles tends to promote the charge carrier transporting ability and resulted in yielding high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.20%, when compared to that of the bare NiS (1.87%). The results show that this nickel sulphide-carbon composite can serve as an efficient dual role as an HTL to transport holes and as a conductive counter electrode for the planar heterojunction PSCs with the structure FTO/compact-TiO2/porous-TiO2/perovskite/NiS-carbon. So, nickel sulphide-carbon composite can be considered as an efficient replacement for the other unstable HTMs and high-cost metal counter electrodes used in PSCs.

Citation

Pitchaiya, S., Natarajan, M., Santhanam, A., Ramakrishnan, V. M., Asokan, V., Palanichamy, P., Rangasamy, B., Sundaram, S., & Velauthapillai, D. (2018). Nickel sulphide-carbon composite hole transporting material for (CH3NH3PbI3) planar heterojunction perovskite solar cell. Materials Letters, 221, 283-288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2018.03.161

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 23, 2018
Online Publication Date Mar 26, 2018
Publication Date Jun 15, 2018
Deposit Date Mar 13, 2023
Journal Materials Letters
Print ISSN 0167-577X
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 221
Pages 283-288
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2018.03.161
Keywords Nickel sulphide, Nickel sulphide-carbon composite, Hole extraction layer, Doctor blade method