Efficiency investigation of SnSe thin-film solar cell using SCAPS-1D simulation

Abstract As a promising solar absorber, the SnSe compound is attracting significant interest in developing thin-film solar cells (TFSCs). We propose a novel FTO / C60 / IDL1 / SnSe / IDL2 / CuSCN / Au TFSC structure and simulate its photovoltaic performance parameters using the SCAPS-1D simulation platform. This work theoretically investigates the effects of the absorber band gap, defect density (N t ), acceptor doping concentration (N A ), the IDLs N t , and the electron transport layer (ETL) thickness. The photovoltaic parameters reach their optimum when the SnSe band gap is 1.3 eV, N A is 1.75 × 10 16 cm −3 , Nt is 10 12 cm −3 , IDLs N t is 10 12 cm −3 , and ETL thickness is 20 nm. The solar cell development culminated in an exceptional power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 34.31%.