Numerical simulation of the carbon nanotubes transport layer influence on performance of GaAs solar cell

Abstract

In this paper we present the results on simulation of the photovoltaic properties of the conventional one junction GaAs solar cell modified with a transparent transport layer. The use of the transport layer allows reduction of the top layer lateral resistance leading to rise of the cell efficiency. In the modeling, we considered three different materials of the transport layer namely, ITO, AZO and carbon nanotubes. The optimum values of the transport layer thickness and distance between the metallic grid bars corresponding to the highest theoretical efficiency are obtained. With light concentration, 17.3%, 10.5 % and 15.1% efficiency was reached for SC with CNT, ITO and AZO transport layers respectively.