Simulated bending test analysis of 23% efficient lead-free flexible perovskite solar cell with different bending states

Abstract

Abstract Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have emerged as a promising technology for developing highly efficient and low-cost photovoltaic (PV) devices. However, toxicity is the primary limiting factor that is restraining the use of traditional PSCs. Therefore, lead-free PSCs have been considered the best alternative due to lead toxicity and environmental impact. The secondary obstacle hindering the potential of PSCs for wearable applications is their limited flexibility. Therefore, lead-free flexible PSC (F-PSC) device is designed and simulated through the Silvaco-TCAD tool in this work. Despite the significant advancements made in F-PSCs, insufficient research is conducted to examine their performance under different bending states to study the reliability of the device’s flexibility. Here, three different bending states have been reported to investigate the proposed device performance, viz. convex, concave, and sinusoidal. The impact of bending radius (BR) in convex and concave from 5 to 20 mm and bending amplitude (BA) in the sinusoidal state from 0.5 to 2 mm is studied and analyzed to optimize the device performance. The performance of the proposed lead-free F-PSC is explored in terms of the current density (JV) curve, PV parameters, and external quantum efficiency (EQE). Optimized PV parameters of the proposed F-PSC are: short-circuit current density (JSC) of 33.45 mA cm−2, open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.925 V, fill factor (FF) of 77.15% and PCE of 23.87%. The findings of the reported study would significantly provide a path for the development of F-PSC.