Characterization and Design of Photovoltaic Solar Cells That Absorb Ultraviolet, Visible and Infrared Light

Abstract

The world is witnessing a tide of change in the photovoltaic industry like never before; we are far from the solar cells of ten years ago that only had 15–18% efficiency. More and more, multi-junction technologies seem to be the future for photovoltaics, with these technologies already hitting the mark of 30% under 1-sun. This work focuses especially on a state-of-the-art triple-junction solar cell, the GaInP/GaInAs/Ge lattice-matched, that is currently being used in most satellites and concentrator photovoltaic systems. The three subcells are first analyzed individually and then the whole cell is put together and simulated. The typical figures-of-merit are extracted; all the I−V curves obtained are presented, along with the external quantum efficiencies. A study on how temperature affects the cell was done, given its relevance when talking about space applications. An overall optimization of the cell is also elaborated; the cell’s thickness and doping are changed so that maximum efficiency can be reached. For a better understanding of how varying both these properties affect efficiency, graphic 3D plots were computed based on the obtained results. Considering this optimization, an improvement of 0.2343% on the cell’s efficiency is obtained.

A Photovoltaic Technology Review: History, Fundamentals and Applications

“…A common solution is the multi-junction or tandem architecture, that consists in stacking different substrates with decreasing band gap energies, from top to bottom, so that photons of decreasing energy values are absorbed by the different layers as they penetrate the cell structure, thus achieving a sort of band selectivity [7,28,51,52]. With this solution, it is possible to overcome the previous value of the Shockley-Queisser limit.…”

“…Only two months later, the Russian space program launched its satellite Sputnik-3, also having a photovoltaic solar source. Thenceforth, photovoltaic power sources are an important system on spacial projects [1,2,7].…”

“…It goes without saying that the war to discover space was one of the great drivers for the advancement of the photovoltaic technology [1,7]. Public applications were always a goal to be reached.…”

Wearable Photovoltaic Applications as Energy Sources for Everyday Devices

“…Flexible solar cells can be a solution to implement this new reality and given the different types of material at our disposal, it is possible to develop different approaches to the problem (Bernardes et al, 2021;dos Santos et al, 2021). Some researchers have focused on building actual textile from these photovoltaic materials, but some opted for a more layer deposition on top of a textile substrate kind of approach.…”

Plasmon-Enhanced Sunlight Harvesting in Thin-Film Solar Cell by Randomly Distributed Nanoparticle Array

“…In the recent decade, the achievement of cheap, inexhaustible energy, and clean sources has been an area of great interest for many researchers all over the world [1]. The photovoltaic solar cell plays an important role among a wide range of renewable resources as an environmentally friendly energy source compared with fossil fuels [2].…”