Design and Optimization of Amorphous Based on Highly Efficient HIT Solar Cell

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to improve the power conversion efficiency of HIT solar cell using amorphous materials. A high efficiency amorphous material based on two dimensional heterojunction solar cell with thin intrinsic layer is designed and simulated at the research level using Synopsys/RSOFT-Solar Cell utility. The HIT structure composed of TCO/a-Si:H(p)/a-Si:H(i)/c-Si(n)/a-Si:H(i)/a-Si:H(n⁺)/Ag is created by using of RSOFT CAD. Optical characterization of the cell is performed by Diffract MOD model based on RCWA (rigorous coupled wave analysis) algorithm. Electrical characterization of the cell is done by Solar cell utility using based on Ideal diode method. In addition, optimization of the different layer thickness in the HIT structure is executed to improve the absorption and thereby the photocurrent density. The proposed HIT solar cell structure resulted in an open circuit voltage of 0.751 V, a short circuit current density of 36.37 mA/cm² and fill factor of 85.37% contributing to the total power conversion efficiency of 25.91% under AM1.5G. Simulation results showed that the power conversion efficiency is improved by 1.21% as compared to the reference HIT solar cell. This improvement in high efficiency is due to reduction of resistive losses, recombination losses at the hetero junction interface between intrinsic a-Si and c-Si, and optimization of the thicknesses in a-Si and c-Si layers.