Influence of Absorber Layer Thickness and Band Gap Tuning on the Optical and Electrical Properties of Semi-transparent Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells

Perovskite solar cells (PSC) have attracted the attention of scientists and researchers due to their good absorption coefficient and color tunability. These properties make them a genuine contender to be used in building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) technologies such as semi-transparent windows. The semi transparency of PSC can be achieved either by band gap tuning or reducing absorber layer thickness. In this work, the FTO/TiO2/MAPbI3/PTAA/Au PSC structure is modelled in SCAPS-1D software. A systematic methodology is designed to study the effect of band gap tuning and layer thickness on the optical transmittivity/absorption, transparency, quantum efficiency, energy band alignment, short circuit current, open circuit voltage, fill factor, and power conversion efficiency of the PSC. Results showed that by increasing the band gap from 1.55 eV to 1.95 eV, the absorption of the light spectrum wavelengths reduced from 800 nm to 650 nm, allowing visible wavelengths to pass through, with efficiency of more than 12%. Reducing the absorber layer thickness from 400 nm to 150 nm further increases the transparency of the PSC to more than 30%.