Growth and efficiency of MAPbBr₃ based perovskite solar cells: insight from experimental and simulation

Herein, we investigated methylammonium lead bromide (MAPbBr₃) perovskite materials obtained using a cost-effective spin-coating technique. An important step toward the excellent production of perovskite thin films is antisolvent treatment. The influence of thermal annealing and two different antisolvents (toluene and chlorobenzene) treatments have been studied on the phase formation and microstructure of the perovskite films using X-ray diffraction analysis, SEM, UV–visible, and photoluminescence. The findings reveal that using the appropriate antisolvent resulted in the formation of homogenous perovskite films with almost no holes and large grains and also improved the morphology of the thin film with antisolvents. Subsequently, we analyzed the results to study the characteristics of different perovskite solar cells (PSCs) produced by different antisolvent using a solar cell capacity simulator (SCAPS). The thickness, defect and acceptor densities were optimized. It is found that an optimal thickness of 500 nm has a detrimental effect on the PSC’ s performance. Indeed, better results were obtained: fill factor FF = 93.02%, Jsc = 8.87 mA/cm², PCE = 17.42%, and Voc = 2.10 V of MAPbBr₃-based solar cells where MAPbBr₃ treated by Chlorobenzene Fresh. The use of chlorobenzene antisolvent showed an enhancement of the perovskite solar cell’ s efficiency. The findings may be of interest to serve in the development of reproducible production procedures of PSCs.