Optimized CIGS based solar cell towardsan efficient solar cell: impact of layers thickness and doping

This paper presents a numerical simulation study of copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells. An electron back reflector layer (EBR) is added to the conventional CIGS structure to minimize the recombination of the carriers at the back contact, and then absorber thickness can be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optical and quantum electronics 2021-05, Vol.53 (5), Article 245
Main Authors: Osman, Yasmina, Fedawy, Mostafa, Abaza, Mohamed, Aly, Moustafa H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carrier density
Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
Computer Communication Networks
Copper indium gallium selenides
Electrical Engineering
Lasers
Optical Devices
Optics
Photonics
Photovoltaic cells
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Solar cells
Thickness
Thin films
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Summary:This paper presents a numerical simulation study of copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells. An electron back reflector layer (EBR) is added to the conventional CIGS structure to minimize the recombination of the carriers at the back contact, and then absorber thickness can be further decreased. The impacts of thickness and carrier concentration variations of the CIGS cell structure are investigated to optimize the performance of the solar cell using the simulator SCAPS. The proposed CIGS solar cell achieved a significant improvement in the conversion efficiency of 27.652%, which is more than 43% higher than those previously reported in the literature for the CIGS solar cells. The proposed work does not only greatly improve the efficiency but also the overall thickness of the CIGS layers are dramatically decreased to 505 nm. That is already 3 to 4 times less than the average thickness reported for the conventional CIGS solar cells.
ISSN:0306-8919
1572-817X
DOI:10.1007/s11082-021-02873-4