SCAPS numerical design of MoSe2 solar cell for different buffer layers

Abstract

The solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS-1D) has been used to simulate, design and analyze of MoSe2, an attractive transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) material, based heterojunction solar cells to use it as a potential alternative to conventional absorber layers used in solar cells. The work also focuses on finding optimal absorber, buffer layer thickness and impact of operating temperature on solar cell performance with a possible replacement to toxic CdS buffer layer. It has been obtained that the optimum thickness of MoSe2 absorber layer is 1 µm and buffer layer is about 0.04 µm. The efficiency obtained with CdS based buffer layer solar cell is 20.21%. Among different buffer layers such as In2S3, ZnO, ZnOS and ZnSe, the highest efficiency obtained of MoSe2 based solar cell is 20.58% with ZnO buffer layer. ZnO buffer based solar cell shows a temperature gradient of -0.355%/K compared to -0.347%/K for CdS buffer based solar cell. The findings of this work provide important guidance to fabricate high-efficiency MoSe2 thin film solar cell with non-toxic ZnO as a potential buffer layer.