Photonic structuration is an efficient way to improve light harvesting in multiple optoelectronic applications. In this study, photonically structured TiO2 is considered as a photoanode layer for perovskite solar cells to enhance light absorption through the excitation of quasi-guided modes within the photoactive perovskite material, while optimizing the charge collection in the photovoltaic assembly and therefore its global efficiency. Practically, polystyrene beads of various diameters are used as hard templating sacrificial agents for the design of inverse-opal TiO2 through spin-coating protocols. The positive impact of the porous photonic structuration in comparison with compact, unstructured photoactive layers is demonstrated. An optimum of light absorption is shown for hybrid TiO2-perovskite structures composed of ∼400 nm diameter TiO2 hollow spheres filled with CH3NH3PbI3, confirming recent numerical predictions. However, electronic-related countereffects are observed in consecutively assembled solar cells when pore dimensions exceed the estimated diffusion length of electrons in the infiltrated perovskite material. Upper conversion efficiency is obtained with solar cells composed of ∼220 nm diameter large TiO2 pores filled with CH3NH3PbI3.

Light management is an important area of photovoltaic research, but little is known about it in perovskite solar cells. The present work numerically studies the positive effect of structuring the photo-active layer of perovskite material. This structuration consists of a hybrid absorbing layer made of an uniform part and an opal-like part. A genetic algorithm approach allows us to determine the optimal combination among more than 1.4 x 10⁹ potential combinations. The optimal combination provides an internal quantum efficiency of 98.1%, nearly 2% higher than for an equivalent unstructured photo-active layer. The robustness of the optimum against potential experimental deviations, as well as the angular dependency of the proposed structure, are examined in the present study.

Perovskite solar cells have shown a tremendous interest for photovoltaics since the past decade. However, little is known on the influence of light management using photonic crystals inside such structures. We present here numerical simulations showing the effect of photonic crystal structuring on the integrated quantum efficiency of perovskite solar cells. The photo-active layer is made of an opal-like perovskite structure (monolayer, bilayer or trilayer of perovskite spheres) built in a TiO₂ matrix. Fano resonances are exploited in order to enhance the absorption, especially near the bandgap of perovskite material. The excitation of quasi-guided modes inside the absorbing spheres enhances the integrated quantum efficiency and the photonic enhancement factor. More specifically, a photonic enhancement factor as high as 6.4% is predicted in the case of spheres monolayer compared to an unstructured perovskite layer. The influences of sphere’s radius and incident angle on the absorbing properties are also estimated. Those numerical results can be applied to the nascent field of photonic structuring inside perovskite solar cells.

Self-assembled synthetic opals are suitable for integration into solution-processed thin film solar cells. In this work, finite-difference time-domain simulations are carried out to tailor optical properties of monolayer and multilayers of semiconductor spheres to trap light when these structures are incorporated into thin film solar cells. In particular, architectures in which spheres are filled with a photoactive material and embedded in a lower refractive index medium are examined. Based on spectra and field intensity maps, this study demonstrates that opal-like photonic crystals obtained from colloidal templates and filled with light-absorbing material can significantly harvest light by exploiting photonic band resonances.