Towards printed perovskite solar cells with cuprous oxide hole transporting layers: a theoretical design

Abstract

Solution-processed p-type metal oxide materials have shown great promise in improving the stability of perovskite-based solar cells and offering the feasibility for a low cost printing fabrication process. Herein, we performed a device modeling study on planar perovskite solar cells with cuprous oxide (Cu<inf>2</inf>O) hole transporting layers (HTLs) by using a solar cell simulation program, wxAMPS. The performance of a Cu<inf>2</inf>O/perovskite solar cell was correlated to the material properties of the Cu<inf>2</inf>O HTL, such as thickness, carrier mobility, mid-gap defect, and doping concentrations. The effect of interfacial defect densities on the solar cell performance was also investigated. Our simulation indicates that, with an optimized Cu<inf>2</inf>O HTL, high performance perovskite solar cells with efficiencies above 13% could be achieved, which shows the potential of using Cu<inf>2</inf>O as an alternative HTL over other inorganic materials, such as NiO<inf>x</inf> and MoO<inf>x</inf>. This study provides theoretical guidance for developing perovskite solar cells with inorganic hole transporting materials via a printing process.