Design and simulation of Cu2SnSe3-based solar cells using various hole transport layer (HTL) for performance efficiency above 32%

Abstract

Abstract The current research investigates the (Ni/V2O5/Cu2SnSe3/In2S3/ITO/Al) novel heterostructure of Cu2SnSe3-based solar cell numerically using the SCAPS-1D simulator. The goal of this study is to determine how the proposed cell’s performance will be impacted by the V2O5 hole transport layer and the In2S3 electron transport layer. To enhance cell performances, the effects of thickness, carrier concentration and defect in the absorber layer, electron concentration, hole concentration, total generation and recombination, interface defect, J-V and Q-E characteristics, and operating temperature are investigated. Our preliminary simulation results demonstrate that, in the absence of V2O5 HTL, the efficiency of a conventional Cu2SnSe3 cell is 22.14%, a value that is in suitable agreement with the published experimental values. However, a simulated efficiency of up to 32.34% can be attained by using the HTL and ETL combination of V2O5 and In2S3, respectively, and optimized device parameters. The ideal carrier concentration and layer thickness for the Cu2SnSe3 absorber layer are, 1018 cm−3 and 1000 nm, respectively,. However, it is also seen that for optimum device performances, the back-contact metal work function (BMWF) must be higher than 5.22 eV. The outcomes of this contribution may open up useful research directions for the thin-film photovoltaic sector, enabling the production of high-efficient and low-cost Cu2SnSe3-based PV cells.