Design and simulation of C₂N based solar cell by SCAPS-1D software

Recently, a novel nitrogenated holey two-dimensional material,C₂N, has been successfully synthesized via a simple wet-chemical reaction. Its merits have drawn much attention from the scientists. However, to the best of our knowledge, few reported works employed C₂Nas photovoltaic materials and the practical solar cells based onC₂Nhave not been fabricated in lab. In this work, we carried out simulation using Scaps-1D to investigate the influences of different parameters on theC₂N based solar cell. By varying the acceptor density, layer thickness, defect density ofC₂Nand changing differentNlayers coupling with C₂N, we found out that suitable acceptor density, around 1015cm-3, large layer thickness ofC₂Nand low defect density were key factors to obtain high-performance solar cells. Small band offset also played an importance role in enhancing the performance of photovoltaic materials. With optimized parameters, C₂Ncoupling with CdS as heterojunction can achieve an efficiency of over 17%. This work may provide valuable insights into future design ofC₂Nbased solar cells.