Fauziyah Salehuddin

Copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) is gaining attention as an effective hole transport layer (HTL) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) due to its excellent electronic properties, high stability, and superior hole mobility. Unlike the commonly used HTL Spiro-OMeTAD, which is sensitive to moisture and degrades quickly, CuSCN offers enhanced moisture resistance and improved durability without compromising efficiency. However, its low hole concentration and conductivity limit its performance. This study investigates the doping of CuSCN with lanthanum (La) to overcome these challenges. La doping introduces additional charge carriers, significantly increasing conductivity. Using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a solvent for solution processing, we achieved a highly transparent and stable CuSCN HTL. The optimal La doping concentration was found to be 3 mol%, yielding a conductivity of 4.13 S cm ⁻¹ and a band gap of 3.67 eV. SCAPS-1D simulation analysis was further employed to optimize the CuSCN HTL thickness, identifying 100 nm as the ideal thickness to maximize device performance. With this thickness optimization, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) improved from 28.17% for pristine CuSCN to 30.54% with 3 mol% La doping. These results demonstrate that tailored La doping combined with optimized HTL thickness can effectively enhance CuSCN’s properties, offering a promising route for developing high-performance and durable PSCs.

The quest for optimal solar energy utilization has prompted an investigation into materials and techniques, establishing luminescent down shifting (LDS). This method converts short-wavelength photons into longer wavelengths thus expanding the range of absorption. This may further enhance the efficiency of solar cell power conversion. Herein, the Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle is introduced as a promising candidate for LDS, mainly due to its ability to convert light effectively and cost-savvy. This research delves into enhancing Niobium (Nb) doped ZnO particles that exhibit photoluminescent characteristics to improve energy conversion efficiency. The synthesis of 1% mol of Nb-doped ZnO nanoparticles on indium tin oxide (ITO) films was achieved using a low-temperature hydrothermal technique, varying the growth duration. Extensive analysis using XRD, SEM, and UV-Vis spectroscopy revealed that the optimal outcomes were achieved with an 8-hour growing period. The analysis revealed a hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure, characterized by prominent peaks on the (111) plane and a crystallite size of 37.18 nm. A morphology study indicated that the ZnO nanorods exhibited a randomly uniform oriented arrangement and a densely formed structure measuring 0.77 ± 0.02 μm. The samples exhibited promising optoelectronic properties based on the analysis, such as a characteristic bandgap of 3.35 eV, a transmittance of 46.54%, and an absorbance of 0.33 a.u .Furthermore, the electrical conductivity of the Nb-doped ZnO films was recorded at 1.62 mΩ⁻¹cm⁻¹.These findings suggest that controlling the Nb growth offers a promising avenue for optimizing the performance of Nb:ZnO nanoparticles for advanced solar energy conversion applications.

This article proposes an optimization method to predictively model the perovskite solar cell with molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) based inorganic hole transport material (HTM) for improved fill factor (FF) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) by finding the most optimum thickness and donor/acceptor concentration for each layer via a hybrid L27 Taguchi grey relational analysis (GRA) based genetic algorithm (GA). Numerical simulation of the device is carried out by employing one-dimensional solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS-1D) while the optimization procedures are developed based on combination of multiple methods; L27 Taguchi orthogonal array, GRA, multiple linear regression (MLR), and GA. The results of post-optimization reveal that the most optimum layer parameters for improved FF and PCE are predicted as follows; SnO2F thickness (0.855 μm), SnO2F donor concentration (9.206×1018 cm-3), TiO2 thickness (0.011 μm), TiO2 donor concentration (9.306×1016 cm-3), CH3NH3PbI3 thickness (0.897 μm), CH3NH3PbI3 donor concentration (0.906×1013 cm-3), MoS2 thickness (0.154 μm), and MoS2 acceptor concentration (9.373×1017 cm-3). Both FF and PCE of the device are improved by ~1.1% and ~12.6% compared to the pre-optimization.

The intriguing behavior of doped polyanilinine/graphene oxide (PANI/GO) offers a solution to the pivotal problem of device stability against moisture in perovskite solar cell (PSC). Tunable bandgap formation of doped PANI/GO with an absorber layer allows effective flexibility for charge carrier conduction and reduced series resistance further boosting the cell performance. Herein, the L₉ Orthogonal Array (OA) Taguchi-based grey relational analysis (GRA) optimization was introduced to intensify the key output responses. Furthermore, this work also delved into incorporating a Pb-free absorber perovskite layer, formamidinium tin triiodide (FASnI₃), and concomitantly eluding the environmentally hazardous substance. The numerical optimization supported by statistical analysis is based on experimental data to attain the utmost peak cell efficiency. Taguchi’s L₉ OA-based GRA predictive modeling recorded over one-fold enhancement over experimental results, reaching as high as 20.28% power conversion efficiency (PCE). Despite that, the PCE of the structures is severely affected by interface defects at the electron transport layer/absorber (ETL/Abs) vicinity, which is almost zero at merely 1 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻², manifesting that control measures need to be taken into account. This work deduces the feasibility of ETL/Abs stack structure in replacing the conventional Pb-based perovskite absorber layer, while maximizing the potential use of doped PANI/GO as a hole transport layer (HTL).

The study proposes a novel approach for detecting adulteration in edible oils utilising a zinc oxide (ZnO)-coated optical sensor. The procedure included the development of a sensor probe using a plastic optical fiber (POF) with a ZnO nanolayer deposition. The ZnO nanorods were applied to the surface of the POF via a hydrothermal process. The sensitivity and accuracy of uncoated and ZnO-coated POFs were compared, and it was discovered that the ZnO-coated POF was more sensitive to changes in the refractive index of the samples under testing. The study ascertained a correlation between the optical power and voltage of the sensor and the refractive index of the medium. As the adulterant concentration in the oil mixture increased, the refractive index of the medium altered. As a result, both the sensor’s output voltage and optical power decreased. Upon completion, it was discovered that the uncoated POF had a sensitivity of 0.073 V/%, whereas the ZnO-coated POF had a sensitivity of 0.085 V/%. These findings highlight the effectiveness of ZnO-coated optical sensors, as well as their potential integration into internet of things (IoT) platforms for monitoring adulteration in edible oils.

High-k dielectric insulators are required to reduce leakage and increase transistor performance. They are able to impact the mobility of carriers in transistors positively, leading to better device performance in advanced transistor architecture. Nevertheless, an in-depth analysis of how high-k dielectric insulators influence transistor characteristics must be carried out to determine their suitability. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of high-k insulators towards electrical properties of junctionless double gate strained transistor. The simulation works is done using process/device simulator Silvaco Athena/Atlas. Based on the retrieved results, the magnitude of ION, on-off ratio, gm, and Cint for TiO2-based device are approximately 63%, 99%, 62%, and 89% respectively higher than the lowest permittivity material-based device. The TiO2-based device also exhibits the lowest magnitude in IOFF and SS compared to others. However, a significant degradation in fT magnitude have been observed for TiO2-based device significantly due to its large capacitances

Solar cells convert sunlight into electricity, and the efficiency of this conversion process largely depends on the material parameters. Optimizing these parameters, like thickness and carrier concentration, could significantly increase the efficiency of solar cells. This paper emphasizes the metaheuristic optimization approach in searching for the optimum input parameters of perovskite solar cell (PSC).

This research examines and analyses the solar cell performance of methylammonium lead triiodide (MAPbI3) perovskite solar cells (PSC) that utilize Polyaniline (PANI)-doped-graphene oxide (GO) as HTL. Additionally, the study used the SCAPS-1D simulation software to model and analyze the experimental data. The simulated data generated by the SCAPS-1D software is afterward compared to the experimental findings. This comparison serves as a foundation for further optimization of the solar cell's performance. This study explicitly examined the impact of layer thickness and doping density on device performance in order to determine which parameters should be optimized to enhance overall performance. The SCAPS-1D simulation obtained a highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.37%. This work presented an improved efficiency of 40% from the experimental data. The findings of our study have the potential to be used in the prediction of key parameters for the optimization of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) using doped PANI/GO as a hole transport layer (HTL).