TY - GEN
T1 - Optoelectronic Modeling of Graded-Bandgap Thin-Film Solar Cells
AU - Ahmad, F.
AU - Lakhtakia, A.
AU - Monk, P. B.
AU - Civiletti, B. J.
N1 - Funding Information:
AL thanks the Charles Godfrey Binder Endowment at Penn State for ongoing support of his research activities. This work was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. DMS-1619901, DMS-1619904, DMS-2011996, and DMS-2011603.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 IEEE.
PY - 2021/9/12
Y1 - 2021/9/12
N2 - Thin-film solar cells are cheap and easy to manufacture but require improvements as their efficiencies are low compared to that of the commercially dominant crystalline-silicon solar cells. A coupled optoelectronic model was formulated and implemented along with the differential evolution algorithm to assess the efficacy of grading the bandgap of the absorber layer in three thin-film solar cells. Optimal grading was predicted to yield efficiency of 21.1% with a 2200-nm-thick CIGS absorber layer for the CIGS solar cell, 21.14% with a 870-nm-Thick CZTSSe layer for the CZTSSe solar cell, and 34.5% with a 2000-nm-Thick AlGaAs layer for the AlGaAs solar cell. For a solar cell with two bandgap-graded absorber layers, an efficiency of 34.45% was predicted with a 300-nm-Thick CIGS layer and a 870-nm-Thick CZTSSe layer. For colored solar cells, efficiency loss was predicted from 10% to 20%, depending upon the percentage of incoming solar photons rejected.
AB - Thin-film solar cells are cheap and easy to manufacture but require improvements as their efficiencies are low compared to that of the commercially dominant crystalline-silicon solar cells. A coupled optoelectronic model was formulated and implemented along with the differential evolution algorithm to assess the efficacy of grading the bandgap of the absorber layer in three thin-film solar cells. Optimal grading was predicted to yield efficiency of 21.1% with a 2200-nm-thick CIGS absorber layer for the CIGS solar cell, 21.14% with a 870-nm-Thick CZTSSe layer for the CZTSSe solar cell, and 34.5% with a 2000-nm-Thick AlGaAs layer for the AlGaAs solar cell. For a solar cell with two bandgap-graded absorber layers, an efficiency of 34.45% was predicted with a 300-nm-Thick CIGS layer and a 870-nm-Thick CZTSSe layer. For colored solar cells, efficiency loss was predicted from 10% to 20%, depending upon the percentage of incoming solar photons rejected.
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U2 - 10.1109/MIEL52794.2021.9569027
DO - 10.1109/MIEL52794.2021.9569027
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85118422549
T3 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Microelectronics, ICM
SP - 101
EP - 102
BT - 2021 IEEE 32nd International Conference on Microelectronics, MIEL 2021 - Proceedings
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 32nd IEEE International Conference on Microelectronics, MIEL 2021
Y2 - 12 September 2021 through 14 September 2021
ER -