Monocrystalline Silicon Solar Cell Simulation With Reduced Absorber Thickness and Efficiency Exceeding 25%

Monocrystalline solar cells (c-Si) are one of the best solar energy technologies. Since the early 1900’s c-Si has had one of the highest power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), compared to other types of solar energy technologies. A major down side to c-Si is the price. c-Si are the highest priced solar cells, selling for $0.254 to$0.455 per watt. The goal of this research is to find a c-Si device architecture that uses less material and still has a high PCE greater than 20%. By using Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Structures (wxAMPS), a solar cell simulation program, to vary and simulate the average c-Si solar cell design parameters. The changes of the c-Si were applied both to the n and p- type dopant layers modifying the thickness, hole mobility, and electron mobility. The simulations performed resulted in the current density – voltage (J-V curves), energy band gap, and the external quantum efficiency (EQE). The power conversion efficiency resulted in a PCE of 28%. The results of this research show that with a reduction in c-Si materials, the PCE is remains higher than many of the other solar energy photovoltaic technologies.