Analysis of plasmonic nanoparticles effects on the performance of perovskite solar cells through surface recombination and short-circuiting behaviors

Abstract

Plasmonic photovoltaics integrate nanoparticles into the active layer to enhance power absorption. However a gap exists between simulated and experimental IV characteristics. Fabrication studies have attributed the issues to fabrication resolution, and recombination with no detailed step-by-step characterization. To address this issue, the paper presents a comprehensive optical and electrical study of a new plasmonic crescent nanoparticle (CNP). These particles serve as a near-field confinement source to enhance the efficiency of perovskite TiO-MAPbI-Spiro solar cells. The proposed design demonstrates that an optimized structure with polarization-dependent multiple modes can offer broad-spectrum absorption across both the visible and near-infrared spectra, resulting in a 15% improvement in the total absorption. The notably high stability of absorption with respect to parameter variation is a remarkable key factor. Employing Charge Transport (CHARGE) solver, the electrical characterization of the proposed plasmonic device is performed in a step-by-step procedure using three different models to characterize the sources of efficiency degradation The ohmic contact reduces quantum efficiency by 11%. Moreover, when surface recombination is considered, the degradation increases significantly to 54%, which matches the experimental studies in the literature. The paper also suggests incorporating a passivation layer which demonstrates its impact in enhancing the quantum efficiency from 18.2% to 22.2%.