Harnessing SWCNT absorber based efficient CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite solar cells

This paper investigates the effect of incorporating a single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) layer into the perovskite solar cell (PSC) structure as an effective technique to boost energy harvesting. The proposed PSC structure utilizes the SWCNTs layer underneath the CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite layer as an absorbing layer forming a novel design of (ITO/SnO₂/CH₃NH₃PbI₃/SWCNTs/NiO_x/C) half tandem PSC structure. The suggested PSC structure is numerically analyzed using finite element method (FEM). The effects of varying thickness and doping concentration of the added layer and the material of rear electrode are investigated to maximize the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the suggested PSC. Results of the 3D opto-electrical study and the energy bandgap analysis confirm that utilizing a 680 nm SWCNTs layer with doping concentration of 1.1 × 10²⁰  cm^-3 beneath a 150 nm perovskite layer enhances the PCE and short circuit current density (J_SC) to \(25.6\%\) $25.6\%$ and \(31.201 mA/{cm}^{2}\) $31.201mA/{\mathit{cm}}^2$ , respectively due to the improving of the PSC absorption by \(27.65\%\) $27.65\%$ . Higher performance of the proposed PSC has been achieved by using gold (Au) electrode instead of carbon (C) one, causing total enhancement of PCE and J_SC of \(6.185\%\) $6.185\%$ and \(9.18\;mA/cm^{2}\) $9.18mA/c{m}^2$ , respectively over their values for (ITO/SnO₂/CH₃NH₃PbI₃/P3HT/NiO_x/C) structure reported in previously published literature. The proposed design can be considered as an efficient alternative to the conventional PSC owing to its higher performance and reduced toxicity.