Equivalent-circuit modeling of microcrystalline silicon pin solar cells prepared over a wide range of absorber-layer compositions

Steve Reynolds, Vladimir Smirnov

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    An equivalent-circuit electrical model is used to simulate the photovoltaic properties of mixed-phase thin-film silicon solar cells. Microcrystalline and amorphous phases are represented as separate parallel-connected photodiode equivalent circuits, scaled by assuming that the photodiode area is directly proportional to the volume fraction of each phase. A reasonable correspondence between experiment and simulation is obtained for short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage vs. volume fraction. However the large dip in fill-factor and reduced PV efficiency measured for cells prepared in the low-crystalline region is inadequately reproduced. It is concluded that poor PV performance in this region is not due solely to shunting by more highly-crystalline filaments, which supports the view that the low-crystalline material has transport properties inferior to either microcrystalline or amorphous silicon.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)A07-A17
    Number of pages6
    JournalMRS Online Proceedings Library
    Volume1245
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

    Keywords

    • Amorphous thin films
    • Thin film
    • Si

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