Modelling, Simulation and Optimization of n-p-n-p Silicon Multilayer Solar Cells
- 1 Unité de physique des dispositifs à semi-conducteurs Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Le Belvédère, Tunis, Tunisia
- 2 Unité de physique des dispositifs à semi-conducteurs Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Le Belvédère, Tunis, Tunisia
- 3 Unité de physique des dispositifs à semi-conducteurs Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Le Belvédère, Tunis, Tunisia
Abstract
We simulate the conception parameters of a model of a silicon multilayer solar cell. The cell is composed by four layers of opposite conductivities forming three junctions inside the cell. The electric contacts are tailored vertically to collect the minority carrier generated under illumination. We developed the equations giving the output power, the fill factor and the efficiency of the cell, taking into account the series resistances of each layer. We optimized, using MATLAB software, the thicknesses of the layers, the impurity concentration level and the distance between the electric contacts. We showed that the optimized photovoltaic structure, with the silicon properties published at the Ioffe institute website, gives an efficiency of 20.66%. The n-p-n-p silicon cell delivers a short circuit current I cc = 45.3 mA/cm2, an open circuit voltage V oc = 0.746 V and an output power of 28.5 mW/cm2. The corresponding fill factor is FF = 84.29%.
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