Design optimization of solar cell with molybdenum sulfide as light absorber

Molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) has been suggested as a light-absorbing material to enhance solar cell efficiency because of its suitable electrical and optical properties. However, very few experimental results have been reported with efficiencies below 10%. In this work, a solar cell device has been studied numerically using MoS2 absorber layer sandwiched between an electron transport layer (ETL) and a hole transport layer (HTL). Numerical simulations provide a powerful tool to assess the potential of various device configurations and materials to achieve high performance. Various HTLs are analyzed, including Cu2O, CuSCN, CuI, NiO, and Spiro-OMETAD, whereas ZnO is used as an ETL. The key parameters that determine the power conversion efficiency of the device were analyzed, namely the short circuit current ( Jsc ) , the open circuit voltage ( Voc ) , and the fill factor (FF). Both p-type and n-type MoS2 were considered. As for losses, they are summed in the band-to-band recombination in the bulk of MoS2. The results demonstrate that power conversion efficiencies exceeding 20% can be obtained by optimizing the cell design.