Monte Carlo Ray Tracing Modelling of Multi-Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Device Enhanced by Luminescent Material

The photovoltaic (PV) optical losses decrease the number of the collected photons resulting in decreasing the total PV conversion efficiency. One solution to increase the external quantum efficiency (EQE) of PV is using luminescent materials which can be applied by either coupling a luminescent down shifting (LDS) thin film to the PV top surface or doping the PV cell encapsulation layer with luminescent materials. In this paper, a Monte Carlo ray tracing (MCRT) algorithm has been developed to predict the EQE and current density of a device consisting of a multi-crystalline Silicon (mc-Si) PV solar cell in which the preexisting poly-ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) encapsulation layer has been doped with Lumogen-F violet 570 dye. The luminescent material down shifted the input radiation spectrum to the region where the PV cell has relatively high efficiency. Modelling and experimental results were in close agreement. EQE of the LDS/PV solar cell was enhanced by 15% and solar cell efficiency increased from 14.93% to 15.07%. The current density (J
_SC
) of the bare cell increased from 31.30 mA/cm
^-2
to 31.38 mA/cm
^-2
when the LDS device was attached.