Design and Performance Analysis of Tandem Organic Solar Cells: Effect of Cell Parameter

Abstract

An organic solar cell (OSC), competitive with traditional one (Si-based), draws attention to future renewable energy sources due to its low-cost and continually rising efficiency. The tandem or multijunction structure undoubtedly offers an efficient way to boost the performance of OSCs. This work has explored the optical modeling of different organic photoactive materials to identify the potential materials for efficient tandem structure. The performance of double, triple, and quadruple junction tandem OSCs with suitable bandgaps has been analyzed with photoactive materials. The absorption efficiency enhances considerably using the thickness optimization of each subcell in tandem structures. Current matching in all subcells, an essential factor for efficient device operation, is taken into account while optimizing tandem structures. The quadruple design can achieve better photovoltaic performance than double or triple junction devices. The efficiency predicted from our proposed quadruple structure is ~15.45%, with a short-circuit current density, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{J}_{\mathrm {SC}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim 9$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mA/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> and an open-circuit voltage, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{V}_{\mathrm {OC}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of ~2.64 V. These results are one of the high-performance in terms of organic photovoltaic (OPV). Therefore, the above findings indicate that OSCs are very potential for future photovoltaic applications.