Boosting short circuit current with rationally designed periodic Si nanopillar surface texturing for thin film solar cell

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Wong ◽  
H.Y. Yu ◽  
Y. L. Li ◽  
J. S. Li ◽  
F. Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Thin Film Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Surface Texturing ◽  
Short Circuit Current

scholarly journals State of Art of Thin Film Photovoltic Cell: A Review

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-163
Author(s):  
Rohan Vijay Salve
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Thin Film Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Open Circuit ◽  
Absorption Length ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Copper Indium ◽  
Copper Indium Gallium

The latest progress and future perspectives of thin-film photovoltaic technology are reviewed herein. This paper reviews the two thin-film solar cell technologies copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), and cadmium telluride (CdTe) and their parameter affecting them. Thin-film solar cell offers a variety of choices in term of device design, tunable property (lifetime, absorption length, conductivity) and verity substrate. Proper understanding of thin-film photovoltaic cells under various parameters like temperature, bandgap, conversion efficiency, open-circuit voltage, and short circuit current, fill factor, and thickness.

scholarly journals CdTe-Based Thin Film Solar Cells: Past, Present and Future

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1684
Author(s):  
Alessandro Romeo ◽  
Elisa Artegiani
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cells ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Short Circuit Current Density ◽  
Open Circuit ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Solar Cell Efficiency ◽  
Cell Efficiency

CdTe is a very robust and chemically stable material and for this reason its related solar cell thin film photovoltaic technology is now the only thin film technology in the first 10 top producers in the world. CdTe has an optimum band gap for the Schockley-Queisser limit and could deliver very high efficiencies as single junction device of more than 32%, with an open circuit voltage of 1 V and a short circuit current density exceeding 30 mA/cm2. CdTe solar cells were introduced at the beginning of the 70s and they have been studied and implemented particularly in the last 30 years. The strong improvement in efficiency in the last 5 years was obtained by a new redesign of the CdTe solar cell device reaching a single solar cell efficiency of 22.1% and a module efficiency of 19%. In this paper we describe the fabrication process following the history of the solar cell as it was developed in the early years up to the latest development and changes. Moreover the paper also presents future possible alternative absorbers and discusses the only apparently controversial environmental impacts of this fantastic technology.

scholarly journals Optimized Thin-Film Organic Solar Cell with Enhanced Efficiency

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13087
Author(s):  
Waqas Farooq ◽  
Muhammad Ali Musarat ◽  
Javed Iqbal ◽  
Syed Asfandyar Ali Kazmi ◽  
Adnan Daud Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Organic Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Short Circuit Current Density ◽  
Open Circuit ◽  
Bragg Reflector ◽  
Performance Parameters ◽  
Distributed Bragg Reflector

Modification of a cell’s architecture can enhance the performance parameters. This paper reports on the numerical modeling of a thin-film organic solar cell (OSC) featuring distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) pairs. The utilization of DBR pairs via the proposed method was found to be beneficial in terms of increasing the performance parameters. The extracted results showed that using DBR pairs helps capture the reflected light back into the active region by improving the photovoltaic parameters as compared to the structure without DBR pairs. Moreover, implementing three DBR pairs resulted in the best enhancement gain of 1.076% in power conversion efficiency. The measured results under a global AM of 1.5G were as follows: open circuit voltage (Voc) = 0.839 V; short circuit current density (Jsc) = 10.98 mA/cm2; fill factor (FF) = 78.39%; efficiency (η) = 11.02%. In addition, a thermal stability analysis of the proposed design was performed and we observed that high temperature resulted in a decrease in η from 11.02 to 10.70%. Our demonstrated design may provide a pathway for the practical application of OSCs.

Preparation of the Three Main Layers of CdS/CdTe Thin Film Solar Cells Using a Single Vacuum System

2011 ◽  
Vol 378-379 ◽  
pp. 601-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saleh N. Alamri ◽  
M. S. Benghanem ◽  
A. A. Joraid
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cells ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Short Circuit Current Density ◽  
Open Circuit ◽  
Fused Silica ◽  
Vacuum System ◽  
Cdte Thin Film

This study investigates the preparation of the three main layers of a CdS/CdTe thin film solar cell using a single vacuum system. A Close Space Sublimation System was constructed to deposit CdS, CdTe and CdCl2 solar cell layers. Two hot plates were used to heat the source and the substrate. Three fused silica melting dishes were used as containers for the sources. The properties of the deposited CdS and CdTe films were determined via Atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and optical transmission spectroscopy. An J-V characterization of the fabricated CdS/CdTe solar cells was performed under solar radiation. The short-circuit current density, Jsc, the open-circuit voltage, Voc, fill factor, FF and conversion efficiency, η, were measured and yielded values of 27 mA/cm2, 0.619 V, 58% and 9.8%, respectively.

Integrated Thin-Film Rechargeable Battery on α-Si Thin-Film Solar Cell

2013 ◽  
Vol 788 ◽  
pp. 685-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Bin Ye ◽  
Ken Yoshida ◽  
Koji Ohta ◽  
Mamoru Baba
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Discharge Capacity ◽  
Thin Film Solar Cell ◽  
Coulombic Efficiency ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Open Circuit ◽  
Rechargeable Battery ◽  
Dry Process ◽  
Si Thin Film

In this paper we reported on fabrication and characterization of a composite harvesting device integrated thin-film rechargeable battery on α-Si thin-film solar cell. The α-Si thin-film solar cell typically presented open-circuit voltage of 4.3 V, short-circuit current of 15.4 mA/cm2 and efficiency of 7.4%. The thin-film rechargeable battery composed of Nb2O5/LiPON/LiMn2O4 systems fabricated using dry process, which showed the initial discharge capacity of about 215 μAh (or 12.4 μAh/cm2), the cycleabilty for discharge was good at keeping about 12.3 μAh/cm2 with a small decreasing ratio of 0.1% per cycle and the coulombic efficiency was all over 95% for the 100 cycles. On the other hand, the discharge capacity of approximately 80% was provided by the self-charging of the solar cell for 10 min, and the coulombic efficiency was also over 95%.

All-Chemically Deposited Solar Cells with Antimony Sulfide-Selenide/Lead Sulfide Thin Film Absorbers

2007 ◽  
Vol 1012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Messina ◽  
M.T.S. Nair ◽  
P. K. Nair
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Chemical Deposition ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Transparent Conductive Oxide ◽  
Short Circuit Current Density ◽  
Open Circuit ◽  
Cell Structures ◽  
Graded Band Gap

AbstractSolar cell structures with Sb2SxSe3-x and PbS as absorber layers were fabricated by chemical deposition on commercial transparent conductive oxide coated glass. The solid solution here was prepared by heating at 250°C a Sb2S3 thin film in contact with a chemically deposited Se-thin film. It has a graded band gap of 1-1.8 eV. A PbS thin film deposited on this layer basically fulfils the role of a p+ layer; its role as an absorber is yet to be studied. Open circuit voltage of 560 mV and short circuit current density ¡Ö 1mA/cm2under 1-3 kW/m2 tungsten halogen radiation are characteristics of these cells. Optimization of the film thicknesses and heating may offer prospects for these materials toward alternate thin film solar cell technology.

Back-reflector design in thin-film silicon solar cells by rigorous 3D light propagation modeling

2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1282-1295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Blome ◽  
Kevin McPeak ◽  
Sven Burger ◽  
Frank Schmidt ◽  
David Norris
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Finite Element ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Simulation Approach ◽  
Cell Models ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Current Densities ◽  
Back Reflector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find an optimized thin-film amorphous silicon solar cell design by numerically optimizing the light trapping efficiency of a pyramid-structured back-reflector using a frequency-domain finite element Maxwell solver. For this purpose short circuit current densities and absorption spectra within the investigated solar cell model are systematically analyzed. Furthermore, the authors employ a topology simulation method to accurately predict the material layer interfaces within the investigated solar cell model. The method simulates the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process that is typically used to fabricate thin-film solar cells by combining a ballistic transport and reaction model (BTRM) with a level-set method in an iterative approach. Predicted solar cell models are far more realistic compared to solar cell models created assuming conformal material growth. The purpose of the topology simulation method is to increase the accuracy of thin-film solar cell models in order to facilitate highly accurate simulation results in solar cell design optimizations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors perform numeric optimizations using a frequency domain finite element Maxwell solver. Topology simulations are carried out using a BTRM combined with a level-set method in an iterative fashion. Findings – The simulation results reveal that the employed pyramid structured back-reflectors effectively increase the light path in the absorber mainly by exciting photonic waveguide modes. In using the optimization approach, the authors have identified solar cell models with cell periodicities around 480 nm and pyramid base widths around 450 nm to yield the highest short circuit current densities. Compared to equivalent solar cell models with flat back-reflectors, computed short circuit current densities are significantly increased. Furthermore, the paper finds that the solar cell models computed using the topology simulation approach represent a far more realistic approximation to a real solar cell stack compared to solar cell models computed by a conformal material growth assumption. Research limitations/implications – So far in the topology simulation approach the authors assume CVD as the material deposition process for all material layers. However, during the fabrication process sputtering (i.e. physical vapor deposition) will be employed for the Al:ZnO and ITO layers. In the framework of this ongoing research project the authors will extend the topology simulation approach to take the different material deposition processes into account. The differences in predicted material interfaces will presumably be only minor compared to the results shown here and certainly be insignificant relative to the differences the authors observe for solar cell models computed assuming conformal material growth. Originality/value – The authors systematically investigate and optimize the light trapping efficiency of a pyramid nano-structured back-reflector using rigorous electromagnetic field computations with a 3D finite element Maxwell solver. To the authors’ knowledge such an investigation has not been carried out yet in the solar cell research literature. The topology simulation approach (to the best of the authors’ knowledge) has previously not been applied to the modelling of solar cells. Typically a conformal layer growth assumption is used instead.

scholarly journals Theoretical analysis of CZTS/CZTSSe tandem solar cells.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atul Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Thin Film ◽  
Solar Cells ◽  
Solar Cell ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Band Gap ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Short Circuit Current ◽  
Alternative Technique ◽  
Tandem Solar Cells ◽  
Bottom Cell

Abstract Kesterite CZTSxSe1−x has a band gap range from 1 to 1.5eV depending upon S/Se ration. The tandem of kieserite solar cell is proposed and simulated in SCAPS-1D for device configuration and analysis of the performance. CZTS of bandgap 1.5eV as top cell and CZTSSe of bandgap 1.1eV as bottom cell are stacked in tandem for the structure. The thickness of the two layer are optimized for matching the short circuit current JSC in the tandem. This study shines light on alternative technique of thin film multijunction for enhancing the efficiency of CZTSxSe1−x solar cells.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document