Investigation of Structural, Morphological, and Optical Properties of Novel Electrospun Mg-Doped TiO2 Nanofibers as an Electron Transport Material for Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are quickly becoming efficient solar cells due to the effective physicochemical properties of the absorber layer. This layer should ideally be placed between a stable hole transport material (HTM) layer and a conductive electron transport material (ETM) layer. These outer layers play a critical role in the current densities and cell voltages of solar cells. In this work, we successfully fabricated Mg-doped TiO2 nanofibers as ETM layers via electrospinning. This study systematically investigates the morphological and optical features of Mg-doped nanofibers as mesoporous ETM layers. The existence of the Mg element in the lattice was confirmed by XRD and XPS. These optical characterizations indicated that Mg doping widened the energy band gap and shifted the edge of the conduction band minimum upward, which enhanced the open circuit voltage (V-oc) and short current density (J(sc)). The electron-hole recombination rate was lowered, and separation efficiency increased with Mg doping. The results have demonstrated the possibility of improving the efficiency of PSCs with the use of Mg-doped nanofibers as an ETM layer.