Theoretical analysis of the electrical characteristics of lead-free formamidinium tin iodide solar cell

Abstract

Green energy transition and climate change have gathered significant momentum in the world because of the rising population and increased clean energy demands. For this reason, renewable energy alternatives such as inexhaustible photo energy from the sun appear to be the ultimate solution to the world's energy needs. Formamidinium tin tri-iodide (HC(NH₂)₂SnI₃)-based perovskites are found to be more efficient and stable than their methylammonium tin tri-iodide (MASnI₃) counterparts because of its wider bandgap and better temperature stability. A device simulation of FASnI₃-based solar cell is numerically performed using solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS-1D). The focus is to investigate the effect of changing working temperature, metal back contact, absorber thickness, defect density, and doping concentration on the performance of the proposed solar cell device. The optimised solar cell parameters of the proposed solar cell were: short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 28.45 mAcm⁻², open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.0042 V, fill factor of 63.73%, and power conversion efficiency of 18.21% at 300 K, thus, paving the way for novel perovskite solar cells which are environmentally benign because they are lead-free, have better absorption efficiency, and can be injected into the production work flow for commercial applications.