22% efficient Kusachiite solar cells of CuBi2O4 light harvester and ABO3 buffer layers: A theoretical analysis

Abstract

Thin film solar cells have gained tremendous interest due to their easy processing and packaging at low costs, but most of them suffer from long-term stability. Therefore, in the quest to find a novel thin film harvester with both high efficiency and long-term stability, the capabilities of cheap and stable copper bismuth oxide or CuBi2O4 (CBO) are comprehensively investigated as an efficient light harvester. Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator-1D (SCAPS-1D) software is used to optimize the performance of CBO-based kusachiite solar cells with various n-type ABO3 perovskite oxide (PO) buffer layers (such as SrTiO3, BaTiO3, SrSnO3, and BaSnO3). The variation in the thickness, doping density, and defect density of the CBO light absorber showed the utmost control over power conversion efficiency (PCE) and other solar cell parameters. The effect of the work function of metal back contact and operating temperature on the performance of solar cells is also analyzed to assess the real-time application of the proposed PO buffer and CBO light harvester based kusachiite solar cells. Among all investigated solar cell device structures, ITO/SrSnO3/CBO/Au optimized in terms of thickness and doping density has shown a theoretical PCE of 22.19%. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd