Effect of transport layer thickness in lead-based perovskite solar cell: A numerical simulation

This paper simulates and compares the performance of three metal oxides as electron transport layer (ETL) in planar n-i-p lead halide perovskite solar cell (PSC). By applying a 1-dimensional numerical software (SCAPS 1-D), titanium dioxide (TiO₂), zinc oxide (ZnO) and tin (IV) dioxide (SnO₂) have been opted as ETL with nickel oxyhydroxide (NiOx) as the hole transport layer (HTL). Detailed analyses are presented for fill factor (FF), open circuit voltage (V_OC), short circuit current (J_SC) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) for thickness variation of methylammonium lead iodide (CH₃NH₃PbI₃) or MAPbI₃ absorber layer. The thickness of perovskite absorber layer has been varied from 100 nm to 1500 nm with optimum PCE are recorded at 600 nm for all metal oxide candidates. At 80 nm thickness of both HTL and ETL, it is observed that SnO₂ produced the highest PCE value of 17.5%, followed by ZnO (17.13%) and TiO2 (16.33%). Meanwhile, the thickness of HTL and ETL have been increased up to 200 nm, which yielded a PCE reduction up to nearly 22% for all ETL candidates. Notably, this is the first ever effort that assess the effect of transport layers thickness towards the performance of lead halide PSC.