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A study of electromagnetic light propagation in a perovskite-based solar cell via a computational modelling approach

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Abstract

Recently, there has been huge surge of scientific interest in organic–inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells by virtue of their high efficiency and low cost fabrication procedures. Herein, we examine the light propagation inside a planar perovskite solar cell structure (\(\hbox {ITO}/\hbox {TiO}_{2}/\hbox {ZnO}/\hbox {CH}_{3}\hbox {NH}_{3}\hbox {PbI}_{3}/\hbox {Spiro-OMeTAD/Al}\)) by solving the Helmholtz equation in the finite element-frequency domain. The simulations were conducted using the COMSOL multiphysics finite element solver to carry out the two-dimensional optical modelling of simulated solar cells in the visible region. It has been observed that shorter wavelengths of light are significantly absorbed by the top region of the photoactive perovskite layer. Specifically, at a wavelength of 400 nm, the effective optical power penetration decays to zero at only 40% of the overall length of the photoactive layer. This observation has been attributed to the high absorption coefficient of the \(\hbox {CH}_{3}\hbox {NH}_{3}\hbox {PbI}_{3}\) perovskite material at shorter wavelengths. However, at longer wavelengths, the incident light propagates deeper into the photoactive layer, reaching 100% penetration. Based on the numerical computation, a maximum generation rate of \({\sim }3.43\times 10^{23}\,\hbox {m}^{3 }\hbox {s}^{-1}\) has been observed in the photoactive layer at a wavelength of 550 nm.

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Acknowledgements

We are highly grateful to the Erasmus Mundus Intact (EM-INTACT) mobility program for providing PhD fellowship for M N Shaikh.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abottabad, 22060, Pakistan

    M N Shaikh

  2. Department of Physics, School of Science, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan

    Q Zafar

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering, Frederick University, 1036, Nicosia, Cyprus

    A Papadakis

Authors
  1. M N Shaikh
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  2. Q Zafar
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  3. A Papadakis
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Correspondence to Q Zafar.

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Shaikh, M.N., Zafar, Q. & Papadakis, A. A study of electromagnetic light propagation in a perovskite-based solar cell via a computational modelling approach. Bull Mater Sci 42, 169 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12034-019-1837-x

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