Perovskite Indoor Light Harvesters: from Atomistic DFT to Optoelectronic Device Modeling

Abstract

Due to the continuous growth in the low power IoT/IoT $${}^{2}$$ applications, the need for sustainable energy sources glows up as a must. Indoor lighting is a potential sustainable energy source capable of being utilized in a wide range of indoor low power applications, especially those related to smart buildings and wireless sensor networks. The current study introduces a novel BaTiO $${}_{3}$$ -dye-TiO $${}_{2}$$ based light harvester simulated under low light intensity (0.2 Sun) LED source. Multiscale modelling approach is presented, starting from an atomistic modelling using density function theory (DFT), up to a complete optoelectronic device model. Energy band diagram, density of states and dielectric permittivity are extracted from the DFT model, to be fed in the optoelectronic device model. The $$I$$ – $$V$$ characteristics for the complete device are simulated under the AM1.5G, as well as low light (0.2 Sun) intensity. For the sake of comparison, Si as well as GaAs-based solar cells are also simulated, showing a boosted performance for the perovskite cell up to 50 $$\%$$ higher than the Si and 35 $$\%$$ than GaAs cells, for indoor harvesting. The proposed BaTiO $${}_{3}$$ recorded an overall extracted power density up to 2.72 mW/cm $${}^{2}$$ , making it appropriate for various low power millimeter scale applications.