Simulation of Optimized High-Current Tandem Solar-Cells With Efficiency Beyond 41%

Two-terminalt and tandem solar-cells have a high efficiency of power conversion. One of their main limitations is the operating current density as the two-terminal tandem solar-cell is equivalent to electrically connected series subcells. Increasing the top absorber layer’s thickness will...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mohamed Mousa, Fathy Z. Amer, Roaa I. Mubarak, Ahmed Saeed
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2021-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9388655/
Description
Summary:Two-terminalt and tandem solar-cells have a high efficiency of power conversion. One of their main limitations is the operating current density as the two-terminal tandem solar-cell is equivalent to electrically connected series subcells. Increasing the top absorber layer&#x2019;s thickness will lead to an increase in the top subcell current and a decrease in the bottom subcell&#x2019;s current. The subcell with the minimum current forces the tandem cell to operate at its value, limiting the overall performance. In this paper, a proposed solution for such a problem is introduced using a bottom subcell consisting of germanium-telluride (GeTe), which gives a high current and matches the top subcell at a thicker absorber layer. A proposal of three different tandem cells with perovskite (MAPbI<sub>3</sub>)/CIGS, perovskite (MAPbI<sub>3</sub>)/GeTe, and perovskite (MAPbI<sub>3-x</sub>Cl<sub>x</sub>)/GeTe have been presented. The proposed perovskite (MAPbI<sub>3</sub>)/CIGS has an efficiency of 30.52&#x0025;, whereas the replacement of the CIGS bottom subcell by GeTe led to a significant enhancement of the efficiency to reach 35.9&#x0025;. High efficiency of 41.7&#x0025; is obtained by replacing the perovskite (MAPbI<sub>3</sub>) top subcell with perovskite (MAPbI<sub>3-x</sub>Cl<sub>x</sub>). A modified numerical algorithm is proposed to obtain the optimum thickness of the top subcell to achieve higher power-conversion efficiency. The performance evaluation and simulation of the designed tandem cells were carried out using SCAPS-1D. The temperature effects on the proposed cells have been encountered in simulation. The results show that the proposed tandem solar-cells have comparable performance and higher efficiencies relative to the published works.
ISSN:2169-3536