Mesoporous TiO2-layer’s rheological impact on the perovskite solar cell performance

Valsalakumar, Sreeram; Roy, Anurag; Mallick, Tapas K; Hinshelwood, Justin; Sundaram, Senthilarasu

Abstract

The rheological impact of the mesoporous-TiO2 (m-TiO2) layer was investigated, which impacted perovskite solar cell (PSC) performance. This also implies the significance of morphological variations according to the pastes’ viscosity and corresponding thickness that cause a slight influence on their bandgap and hence device photovoltaic performance. The m-TiO2 paste results in a viscosity of 2.85 cP with a thickness of 1 μm, indicating the bandgap of ∼ 3.55 eV. In contrast, the higher viscous paste (3.85 cP) exhibits a slightly enhanced bandgap of ∼ 3.64 nm, leading to a thickness of > 1 μm. Besides, the data obtained from these analyses were used for cell performance analysis through the SCAPS 3.3 software-based simulation with a predicted power conversion efficiency of 23.59 %. It was observed that the PSC’s short circuit current density and the thickness of the m-TiO2 layer are inversely proportional, whereas the open-circuit voltage shows an independent effect on m-TiO2 viscosity. This study envisages an initial trade-off between the m-TiO2 layer’s porosity, bandgap and thickness that can ensure the PSC with improved performance parameters.

Citation

Valsalakumar, S., Roy, A., Mallick, T. K., Hinshelwood, J., & Sundaram, S. (2023). Mesoporous TiO2-layer’s rheological impact on the perovskite solar cell performance. Materials Letters, 337, Article 133960. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2023.133960

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 24, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jan 25, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-04
• Deposit Date: Mar 10, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 10, 2023
• Journal: Materials Letters
• Print ISSN: 0167-577X
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 337
• Article Number: 133960
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2023.133960
• Keywords: Bandgap, Electron transport layer, Perovskite solar cells, Rheology, TiO2 paste, Viscosity