Performance optimization of c-Si solar cell by tuning the device parameters

Abstract

The performance of a solar cell depends upon different parameters of it. To study the effect of different parameters on the efficiency, different solar cell simulation software are well practiced in the advanced semiconductor research labs to skip repeated costly and time consuming experiments. A study utilizing the PC1D solar cell simulation software shows that a crystalline silicon solar cell gives optimum performance having a very thin top n layer with total cell thickness of 80 μm, Surface texturing angle of 610, Back Surface Field (p++) of about 95×1016 cm-3 more than the p layer, Anti reflection coating of MnO2. The 86.4nm thick ARC layer with refractive index of 1.7355 showed a better internal and external quantum efficiency at the visible range of solar spectrum with around 92% EQE at 600nm light wavelength. The research reveals that overall efficiency improvement of 5.5% is possible for proper selection of dimension, electrical and optical parameters of the c-Si solar cell.