Performance Analysis and Optimization of a PBDB-T:ITIC Based Organic Solar Cell Using Graphene Oxide as the Hole Transport Layer

The hole transport layer (HTL) in organic solar cells (OSCs) plays an imperative role in boosting the cell’s performance. PEDOT:PSS is a conventional HTL used in OSCs owing to its high design cost and instability issues. It can be replaced with graphene oxide to increase the cell performance by overcoming instability issues. Graphene oxide (GO) has gained popularity in recent years for its practical use in solar energy due to its remarkable mechanical, electrical, thermal, and optical properties. This work uses SCAPS-1D to examine the results of graphene oxide (GO)-based organic solar cells by giving a comparison between the performance of absorber layers and a GO-based HTL to see which absorber material interacts more strongly with GO. The absorber layer PBDB-T:ITIC paired with GO as HTL outperforms the other absorber layers due to its better optical and electrical characteristics. Numerical simulations are performed within the SCAPS software at various absorber layer thicknesses, defect densities, and doping values to assess the influence on device performance and efficiency. After cell optimization, the best efficiency of an improved OSC is found to be 17.36%, and the outcomes of the simulated OSC are referenced to the results of the experimentally implemented OSC. These results provide a possible future direction for developing GO-based OSCs with higher efficiency.