Lead-Free Perovskite Nanostructures: A Step Toward Sustainable High-Efficiency Solar Cells

Abstract

Dual perovskite materials that are lead-free remain of great interest among the research community due to their potential utility in photocatalysts and electronics, whereas without the inclusion of lead, they can potentially be used as non-environmentally toxic materials. In light of the global trend towards replacing lead-containing materials with safer alternatives, this study focuses on employing ZnSnO₃ as a lead-free option to reduce the environmental and health risks associated with conventional photovoltaic materials while maintaining electronic and optical properties suitable for solar applications. This work developed a low-cost and environmentally friendly way to produce ZnSnO₃ composites and to test how effective such materials would be as an active layer in solar cells. The device consists of an FTO/TiO₂/ZnSnO₃/CuO/Al stack structure. The ZnSnO₃ film is very crucial due to its ability to harvest visible light and accelerate the charge transfer. The samples were examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). This indicated that the nanoparticles have a uniform morphology and unique optical properties. Measurements indicated that the ZnSnO₃ has a direct band gap of around 3.32 eV. This makes it able to take in a lot of sunlight. Under 100 mW/cm² of illumination, the cell prepared with this structure also showed a power conversion efficiency of 5.6%. Such results indicate that room temperature ZnSnO₃ is a possible attractive medium to enhance environmentally friendly solar cells