Combining 2D and 3D Device Simulation with Circuit Simulation for Optimising High-Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

This paper reports on simulation techniques developed for the modelling and optimisation of complete, 2 x 2 cm2, high-efficiency silicon solar cells. We use three-dimensional (3d) device simulation to extract a J-V curve of an interior section of a cell. 2D simulations of the cell perimeter are then used to correct the J-V curves for the loss of carriers across the cell boundary. The resulting characteristics are input to a circuit simulation which connects the various cell sections into a model of a full cell. The J-V curve which results from that simulation can be directly compared to measured data. We find excellent agreement between simulation and measurement.

A Detailed Full-Cell Model of a 2018 Commercial PERC Solar Cell in Quokka3

“…Note that an approximation implied by the multidomain model is that the four corners of the cell are represented by two adjacent edge domains, which however incurs very small errors [3].…”

“…Fell is also with AF simulations, 79232 March, Germany (email: andreas@quokka3.com) already in the 1970's [2] and later e.g. in [3,4]. The SPICE model is fed with the IV curves of possibly various different "unit cell" domains from the inner and the edge part of the cell.…”

Modeling Edge Recombination in Silicon Solar Cells

“…3D semiconductor carrier transport around the edge, and the influence of the nearedge metallization geometry in conjunction with other transport-related properties like emitter sheet resistance and bulk resistivity. Such a complete description of a solar cell with edges is otherwise only possible a complex combination of detailed device simulation of the different unit cells and combining them with a distributed electrical circuit simulation [18,19].…”