Impact of tin-based perovskite as a hole transport layer on the device performance of stable and 27.10% efficient CdTe-based solar cell by numerical simulation

In this work, a numerical simulation study on cadmium telluride (CdTe)-based thin film solar cell structure utilizing CdTe as absorber layer, Cadmium sulphide (CdS) as window layer, and lead-free perovskite (CH3NH3SnBr3) as a hole transport layer (HTL) is presented for the first time. The effect of different material parameters such as shallow uniform acceptor density (NA) of absorber and HTL, thicknesses of absorber and HTL, Electron affinity of HTL, defect density of absorber layer, series and shunt resistance, back contact metal work function, and operating temperature on photovoltaic (PV) parameters such as open-circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Jsc), fill factor (FF), and photo conversion efficiency (PCE) has been studied. With the introduction of perovskite as HTL, it is observed that Voc increased from 0.66 V to 1.17 V by creating a suitable band alignment with the CdTe absorber layer, causing an improvement in efficiency by preventing carrier recombination at the back contact surface. The designed solar cell has shown an enhanced PCE of 27.10% with Voc ∼1.17 V, Jsc ∼27.76 mA/cm2, and FF ∼83.40%. Thus, from the study, it is possible to achieve high-performance CdTe-based solar cells using perovskite as HTL for photovoltaic applications.