Assessment of Photon Recycling in Perovskite Solar Cells by Fully Coupled Optoelectronic Simulation

Simon Zeder, Beat Ruhstaller, Urs Aeberhard

Phys. Rev. Applied 17, 014023 – Published 20 January 2022

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.17.014023

Photon recycling (PR) is the re-absorption of internally emitted photons. Can it be another fundamental advantage of perovskites over other semiconductors in solar cells?

Simon Zeder and colleagues at FLUXiM AG discovered that PR could influence considerably the efficiency of MAPI-based solar cells. They coupled a wave optics approach with electronic transport simulations to treat photon recycling, rigorously. These simulations are showing that PR could increase the open-circuit voltage in pero-PVs by 50 mV in ideal conditions, and by 15 mV in the case of non-radiative recombination at the interfaces with MAPI. Further simulations show that the electron transporting layer (PCBM) and the back electrode (Ag) account for about 87% of the total parasitic absorption losses.

These results were obtained with the simulation software Setfos and can be used to design perovskite solar cells where photon recycling is an exploited beneficial effect.