Current-voltage characteristics and performance efficiency of polysilicon solar cells

Abstract

Making use of new relations for grain boundary potential barrier height and the effective recombination velocity of minority carriers at the edge of the grain boundary space charge region developed in an earlier paper, attempts have been made to study photovoltaic properties of an n + p solar cell. For the sake of this study new formulae for short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, fill factor, and solar cell efficiency have been derived. Calculated results obtained from these formulae are compared with available experiments. The comparison for most of the parameters with recent experiments is highly encouraging. It is found that the highest values of short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, fill factor, and solar cell efficiency depend on some optimum value of the grain size and of the doping concentration.