Design and analysis of high-efficiency perovskite solar cell using the controllable photonic structure and plasmonic nanoparticles

Device modeling of CH3NH3PbI3 based controllable photonic structure and plasmonic nanoparticles perovskite solar cells (PSC) was performed. In recent years, light trapping (LT) and plasmonic structures in PSCs have been developed and attracted widespread attention and encouraged researchers to develop and test many architectures in this area. Also, using controllable photonic structures and plasmonic nanoparticles in PSCs significantly affect the power conversion efficiency (PCE). LT by photonic structure and also the interaction of incident light with plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) is considered as a hopeful way to enhance the PCE of PSCs in this simulation. For accurate calculation and also considering all parameters on PSC, the present simulation is done using the finite element method (FEM). The simulation results showed that using a photonic structure significantly affects the photovoltaic result of the PSC, and the PCE reached from 15.62 % for the planar structure to 16.17 % for the photonic structure. Here, we concentrate on a significant aspect of nanostructures that minimizes light loss by optimizing and managing light to achieve high PCE for the PSC. Then we used plasmonic NPs at the top of the electron layer transfer (ETL), active layer, and hole transfer layer (HTL), and the best position to achieve the highest PCE was the top of HTL. Moreover, an additional layer as a complimentary layer (CH3NH3SnI3) was used to maximize efficiency with values of short circuit current (Jsc) 27.81 (mA/cm2), open circuit voltage (Voc) 0.949 (V), fill factor (FF) 81.77 % and PCE 21.85 %. Using these combined techniques opens horizons of improvement for the PCE of PSC. [Display omitted] •Light absorption increase using plasmonic nanoparticles (PNPs) was investigated.•Using the light trap (LT) mechanism increases active layer absorption over planar structure.•Performance of the proposed PSC is highly dependent on the position and location of PNPs.•Placing Au PNPs in the double active layer increased PCE to 21.85 %.