Abstract
Numerical simulation of various structures of a solar cell plays a crucial role in the design, performance prediction and the comprehension of the physics involved in their operation. It also allows of better understanding the different ways to improve the solar cells efficiency before the manufacture of the practical cell. Objectives: In this study, numerical results were obtained using SCAPS-1D program in order to improve GaAs solar cells performance. Methods: The analysis deals with the role of Alx Ga1-x As-type window layer on overall electrical performance of solar cells. The variations of thickness and doping levels in this window layer were also investigated. Findings: By growing this layer at the GaAs surface, the efficiency increased from 17.23% to 27.37%. The simulation results showed that this window layer should be very thin and slightly doped to achieve good performances of the entire solar cells. Improvements/Applications: These results are interesting because they show how much the window layer is important in improving the efficiency of GaAs solar cells. Keywords: Efficiency Improvement, GaAs, Numerical Simulation, SCAPS-1D, Solar Cell, Window Layer
Highlights
During recent years, Gallium Arsenide based solar cells have been widely used in particular for spatial applications, due to their suitable band gap energy of 1.42 eV 1, high conversion efficiency and their ability to resist to high space irradiations 2–8
The first GaAs based solar cells had only achieved conversion efficiency in the order of 10% 9,10. This problem has been partially resolved by depositing at the GaAs surface a window layer with large band gap energy 11
In0.5(Al0.7Ga0.3)0.5 P thin film used as back surface field in the design of GaAs solar cells improves the efficiency by 6% thanks to its high photo generation rate 15
Summary
Gallium Arsenide based solar cells have been widely used in particular for spatial applications, due to their suitable band gap energy of 1.42 eV 1, high conversion efficiency and their ability to resist to high space irradiations 2–8. It has been shown that AlxGa1-xAs thin film material with large band gap energy, acting like window layer and/or Back Surface Field (BSF) can help improving significantly the performance of this solar cells[11,12,13]. As AlxGa1-xAs and GaAs materials exhibit similar crystalline parameters, few defects and recombination centers can exist at the interface between them 14,15 This seemed to be useful because the conversion efficiency of these cells has passed 20% for the first time at the end of the year’s 70 14. In0.5(Al0.7Ga0.3)0.5 P thin film used as back surface field in the design of GaAs solar cells improves the efficiency by 6% thanks to its high photo generation rate 15 This kind of solar cells has achieved a good success of conversion efficiency around 20–25% 16. In 22 reported a value of 25.8% using PC1D numerical simulations on GaAs solar cells
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