Numerical simulation of vanadium dioxide integrated MAPbI₃ solar cells for enhanced thermal stability and photovoltaic performance

The selection of appropriate transport layer materials is of vital importance for enhancing the stability and performance of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In this study, vanadium dioxide (VO₂) was employed as an electron transport layer (ETL) to investigate the influence of its phase transition properties on PSC performance. Given the high-temperature resistance of titanium dioxide (TiO₂), a p-i-n structured PSC with the configuration of ITO/Spiro-OMeTAD/MAPbI₃/TiO₂/VO₂/Ag was constructed. Through numerical simulation, the PCE of the VO₂-based perovskite solar cells reaches 8.226 % at 30 °C. When the temperature rises to 80 °C, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) does not show a decline but increases up to 9.429 %. This phenomenon reveals the superior thermally stable properties of the proposed structure when exposed to elevated temperature. Further optimization of the VO₂ layer thickness at 80 °C revealed that a thickness of 65 nm enables the device to achieve a peak efficiency of 9.601 %, while maintaining over 90 % of the initial PCE under reduced light intensities. These results demonstrate that the introduction of VO₂ and its interaction with TiO₂ in a layered structure can effectively adapt to high-temperature environments, providing valuable insights for developing efficient and thermally stable perovskite solar cells.