Abstract
Multijunction solar cells designed from silicon (Si)-germanium (Ge) alloy based semiconductor materials exhibit high theoretical efficiencies (19.6%) compared to the single junction one. The modeling calculations for all solar cells are done by AMPS 1D simulator. The structure of multi-junction i-layer is designed using heterolayers, starting from pure crystalline Si and increase of Ge mole fraction by 25% until pure Ge layer is reached. The top layer has the largest band gap, while the bottom layer has the smallest bandgap. This design allows less energetic photons to pass through the upper layer(s) and be absorbed by the layer below, which increases the overall efficiency of the solar cell. Material parameters required to model the absorber layers are calculated and incorporated in the AMPS 1D simulator for optimizing of solar cell parameter values. Simulation results show that considerable efficiency enhancement can be obtained from the addition of the multi-junction layer.
Highlights
Among all sources of renewable energy, solar energy is attractive due to its abundancy, cleanliness, nontoxicity, and maintenance-free
A stacked layer structure of Si and germanium (Ge) with different mole fractions can be considered for solar cell, which is affecting the band gaps of the absorber layers and consecutively used the solar spectrum towards the nearinfrared region
Results and Discussions of Designed Solar Cell Device In AMPS 1D simulator, the solar cell device modeling involves the numerical solution of a set of equations, which require the input of device parameters for all the properties
Summary
Among all sources of renewable energy, solar energy is attractive due to its abundancy, cleanliness, nontoxicity, and maintenance-free. The efficiency of a single solar cell can be enhanced by a tandem structure consisting of an amorphous and a microcrystalline (mc) layer in stack, with band gaps of about 1.7 and 1.2 eV, respectively. A stacked layer structure of Si and germanium (Ge) with different mole fractions can be considered for solar cell, which is affecting the band gaps of the absorber layers and consecutively used the solar spectrum towards the nearinfrared region. AMPS-1D (analysis of microelectronic and photonic structures) is a numerical simulator used for analysing and designing homo- and hetero junctions based semiconductor devices, for example, solar cell [9]. A comparative study of the obtained solar parameter values for single junction with stacked hetero-layer (multijunction) is reported here, considering the advantage of band gap tunability and lattice constants with the compositions
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