Computer simulation of hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cell

Abstract

This work is a numerical simulation of the output parameters of a PIN a-Si:H solar cell under AM1.5 spectrum. These parameters are the short circuit current (Jsc), the open circuit voltage (Voc), the fill factor (FF), the conversion efficiency (h) and the spectral response (SR). The simulation was performed with SCAPS-1D software version 3.2 developed at ELIS in Belgium by Marc Burgelman et al. The obtained results are in agreement with experiment. In addition, the effect of the thickness and the defect density of the intrinsic layer (I) on the output parameters of the cell are also presented. It was found that a I layer thickness of 0.3 μm consists the optimum value for the cell efficiency as well for the spectral response. For the I layer defect density it was found that it induces a serious deterioration in the output parameters of the cell when the defect density exceeds 1016cm-3