Open AccessPerformance Evaluation of an Improved Double Intrinsic Layer CdTe/a-Si Thin Film Photovoltaic Cell
Author(s) -
Muhammad Shahbaz Khan,
AUTHOR_ID,
Muhammad Tariq,
Safee Ullah,
Muhammad Shahzad,
Talha Masood Khan
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
international journal of electrical and electronic engineering and telecommunications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.171
H-Index - 6
ISSN - 2319-2518
DOI - 10.18178/ijeetc.11.1.24-33
Subject(s) - optoelectronics , materials science , cadmium telluride photovoltaics , heterojunction , amorphous silicon , energy conversion efficiency , photovoltaic system , solar cell , absorption (acoustics) , layer (electronics) , band gap , indium tin oxide , thin film , active layer , crystalline silicon , nanotechnology , thin film transistor , electrical engineering , composite material , engineering
This paper presents a 1μm×1.25μm×1μm heterojunction thin film photovoltaic cell having “p-i1-i2-n” cell structure. The designed “ITO/p-CdTe/i1-CdTe/i2-a-Si/n-a-Si/ITO” photovoltaic cell is investigated, optimized and simulated in Silvaco TCAD. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been carried out to cater all physical and numerical models to generate practical results. For improvement in cell efficiency, a 1.52 eV wide-bandgap p-layer of CdTe is used which specifically improves the short circuit current (JSC). JSC is directly involved in the improvement of conversion efficiency. For the active region, an intrinsic CdTe layer is combined with an intrinsic amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer. This combination of intrinsic layers in active region is responsible for maximum absorption of photons with a wide range of energies and results in additional electron hole pair generation. Selective absorption is used to maximize light trapping and strong scattering of incident light into active region. Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is used as front layer and back contact layer with Aluminum (Al) because it offers low resistivity of ~10-4 Ωcm and a transmittance of greater than 90%. Results have been validated by implementing two reported cells with p-i-i-n and p-i-n structures. The results indicate achievement of 28.05% conversion efficiency of the proposed heterojunction cell. The achieved efficiency is better than the efficiencies of the related cells compared in this work and also higher than that of the 25.6% of conventional Heterojunction Intrinsic Thin-film (HIT) silicon solar cells.