Thickness Optimization of Thin-Film Tandem Organic Solar Cell.

Kamran Ali Bangash,Amir Mosavi,Saba Ayub,Syed Asfandyar Ali Kazmi,Waqas Farooq,Muhammad Ali Musarat,Wesam Salah Alaloul,Muhammad Faisal Javed

doi:10.3390/mi12050518

Abstract

The polymer solar cells also known as organic solar cells (OSCs) have drawn attention due to their cynosure in industrial manufacturing because of their promising properties such as low weight, highly flexible, and low-cost production. However, low η restricts the utilization of OSCs for potential applications such as low-cost energy harvesting devices. In this paper, OSCs structure based on a triple-junction tandem scheme is reported with three different absorber materials to enhance the absorption of photons which in turn improves the η, as well as its correlating performance parameters. The investigated structure gives the higher value of η = 14.33% with Jsc = 16.87 (mA/m2), Voc = 1.0 (V), and FF = 84.97% by utilizing a stack of three different absorber layers with different band energies. The proposed structure was tested under 1.5 (AM) with 1 sun (W/m2). The impact of the top, middle, and bottom subcells’ thickness on η was analyzed with a terse to find the optimum thickness for three subcells to extract high η. The optimized structure was then tested with different electrode combinations, and the highest η was recorded with FTO/Ag. Moreover, the effect of upsurge temperature was also demonstrated on the investigated schematic, and it was observed that the upsurge temperature affects the photovoltaic (PV) parameters of the optimized cell and η decreases from 14.33% to 11.40% when the temperature of the device rises from 300 to 400 K.

Highlights

For better configuration of tandem organic solar cells (TOSCs), the optimal feature of bandgap energies should be the main consideration that needs to be optimized for extracting high conversion efficiency
Three different absorber layers were utilized in such a way that P3HT: PCBM is Micromachines 2021, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW
Three different absorber layers were utilized in such a way that P3HT: 1, PTB7:

Summary

Introduction

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have been a point of attention and main consideration for many research communities over the past few decades due to their countless advantages such as light weight, thin size, low manufacturing cost, and semi-transparency. The extracted conversion efficiency for multi-layer solar cells based on absorption material has not much exceeded as collating to inorganic solar cells [1]. The recorded η is, slightly more than the single-layer-based OSCs [2], which indicates that there is still a great chance for improving the schematic of tandem organic solar cells (TOSCs). For better configuration of TOSCs, the optimal feature of bandgap energies should be the main consideration that needs to be optimized for extracting high conversion efficiency

Objectives

Results

Conclusion