Performance Study of Silicon-Based Multi-Junction Solar Cell

Kamrunnahar Kali,Must Asma Yasmin,Mohammad Ashraful Islam,Komol Kanta Sharker,Sangita Das

doi:10.4236/cweee.2019.84006

Kamrunnahar Kali, Must Asma Yasmin + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/cweee.2019.84006

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Abstract

This paper presents a performance study of silicon-based multi-junction (MJ) solar cell which is produced by Spectrolab is the most efficient solar cell in the world, with a record efficiency of over 40%. The I-V characteristics of solar cells were investigated for different environmental conditions (both at indoor and outdoor). Photovoltaic (PV) parameters like short circuit current (ISC), open circuit voltage (VOC), fill factor (FF) and efficiency (?) were evaluated for the fabricated cell. The fabricated cell provides I-V characteristics curve which shows that the maximum efficiency of the cell is obtained when the cell temperature is lower. It was also observed that, efficiencies of the cells are about 17% to 24% at indoor and 7% to 20% at outdoor and fill factors are 0.40 to 0.71. From the result, it can also be found that fill factor is directly affected by the values of the cells series and shunt resistance.

Highlights

Energy plays a crucial role in human activities and has gradually become the foundation of modern economy all over the world
This paper presents a performance study of silicon-based multi-junction (MJ) solar cell which is produced by Spectrolab is the most efficient solar cell in the world, with a record efficiency of over 40%
MJ solar cells split up the solar spectrum by vertically stacking subcells comprised of different energy bandgaps in order to more efficiently convert energy from the solar spectrum

Summary

Introduction

Energy plays a crucial role in human activities and has gradually become the foundation of modern economy all over the world. Among the many currently available PV technologies, multi-junction PV solar cells produce the highest energy conversion efficiencies exceeding the Shockley-Queisser limit [2] [8]. The silicon solar cell’s technological improvements resulted in the achievement of the 25% record efficiency on lab scale and of 22% in production [2], very close to the theoretical maximum efficiency for a single junction PV device of 31%. The Single junction cell has the limitation that it cannot absorb low energy photons and as such has relatively low efficiency. To overcome this limitation, MJ solar cells, such as double and triple junction solar cells, based on the spectral splitting principle have been devised

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