Impact of Different Antireflection Layers on Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) Solar Cells: a PC1D Simulation Study

Impact of Different Antireflection Layers on Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) Solar Cells: a PC1D Simulation Study

Authors: Devendra KC, Deb Kumar Shah, Amer M. Alanazi & M. Shaheer Akhtar

Journal of Electronic Materials

https://www.springer.com/journal/11664

Received: 02 September 2020: Accepted: 10 December 2020: Published

23 January 2021

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-020-08696-5

Cite this article.

KC, D., Shah, D.K., Alanazi, A.M. et al. Impact of Different Antireflection Layers on Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) Solar Cells: a PC1D Simulation Study. Journal of Elec Materi (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-020-08696-5

Abstract

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is currently known to be one of the reliable cost-effective materials for manufacturing solar cells. In this work, different materials such as magnesium fluoride (MgF2), aluminum trioxide (Al2O3), tin oxide (SnO2), and magnesium oxide (MgO) were applied as a single antireflection coating (ARC) layer and characterized their optoelectrical properties of the resulting CdTe solar cells. A personal computer one-dimensional (PC1D) simulation study was carried out to instigate the overall performance when varying the thickness of the absorber and window layers. Simulation results confirmed that Al2O3 single ARC layer with thickness of 83 nm achieved the best efficiency of 17.81% as compared with the other ARC materials. The Al2O3 single ARC layer resulted in a short-circuit current of 2.89 A and open-circuit voltage of 0.740 V.

Keywords

Antireflection materials, CdTe solar cells, PC1D simulation, optoelectrical properties, conversion efficiency

 

Refined optoelectronic properties of silicon nanowires for improving photovoltaic properties of crystalline solar cells: a simulation study

Refined optoelectronic properties of silicon nanowires for improving photovoltaic properties of crystalline solar cells: a simulation study.

Authors: Deb Kumar Shah, Jaeho Choi, Devendra KC, M. Shaheer Akhtar, Chong Yeal Kim and O-Bong Yang

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics (2021)

Cite this article:

Shah, D.K., Choi, J., KC, D. et al. Refined optoelectronic properties of silicon nanowires for improving photovoltaic properties of crystalline solar cells: a simulation study. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-05031-w

Received 17 August 2020, Accepted 01 December 2020, Published 02 January 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-05031-w

Abstract:

Tremendous works have been devoted on reducing the materials costs and searching a low-cost antireflection (AR) layer in silicon (Si) solar cells. This work reports on the surface architectural of Si wafer (p-type) by growing the nanowires (NWs)-like structures through cost-effective wet-controlled etching method. The nanostructures over Si wafer were optimized in terms of sizes, lengths and densities by changing the etching conditions and thoroughly examined their growth and optoelectrical properties. The well-defined grown NWs textured on Si wafer exhibited the low average reflectance of ~ 2.25% in the full visible-NIR spectrum from 400 to 1000 nm which was well matched to the simulated average reflectance of 2.23%. A model was designed using PC1D simulation to evaluate the photovoltaic (PV) parameters of NWs textured Si wafer-based solar cells without AR layer. In this simulation, the length of SiNWs and reflectance were selected as input parameters to instigate the power conversion and quantum efficiencies of solar cells. The highest conversion efficiency of ~ 16.2% is observed when the average length of SiNWs and reflectance were ~ 2.52 μm and ~ 2.25%, respectively. Experimentally, the fabricated SiNWs-based solar cell with etching time of 20 min attained the highest conversion efficiency of 15.9% and the value was very close to simulated results. PV parameters of SiNWs-based solar cells without AR layer were comparable to commercial c-Si solar cells with SiNx AR layer. Thus, the controlled wet etching is an easy, facile method for fabrication of nanowires on Si wafer with low reflectance. The enhancement in optical and electrical properties would be expected to a great prospect in developing low-cost c-Si solar cells without AR layer.

Link:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10854-020-05031-w#citeas