MURANG’A UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

Lecture Notes: Topic II

EES210

PHYSICAL ELECTRONICS II

Lecturer: B.K WAMUKOYA

Room: F2.1

Email: [email protected]

Semester II: MAY – AUG 2021

B.K WAMUKOYA 2021 EES210

Topic II: SOLAR CELLS

Introduction

A solar cell is a pn junction device with no voltage directly applied across the junction. The
solar cell converts photon power into electrical power and delivers this power to a load.
These devices have long been used for the power supply of satellites and space vehicles,
and also as the power supply to some calculators.
Under this topic, we will consider the simple pn junction solar cell with uniform generation
of excess carriers. Heterojunction and amorphous silicon solar cells will be discussed at
another level.

2.0 The pn Junction Solar Cell

Consider the pn junction shown in Figure 2.0 with a resistive load. Even with zero bias
applied to the junction, an electric field exists in the space charge region as shown in the
figure. Incident photon illumination can create electron–hole pairs in the space charge
region that will be swept out producing the photocurrent IL in the reverse-biased direction
as shown.
The photocurrent IL produces a voltage drop across the resistive load which forward biases
the pn junction. The forward-bias voltage produces a forward-bias current IF as indicated
in the fi gure. The net pn junction current, in the reverse-biased direction, is

𝑒𝑉
𝐼 = 𝐼𝐿 − 𝐼𝐹 = 𝐼𝐿 − 𝐼𝑆 [𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) − 1] ………………….. [2.0]
𝑘𝑇

Figure 2.0: A pn junction solar cell with resistive load

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Figure 2.1: V-I characteristics of a pn junction Solar cell

where the ideal diode equation has been used. As the diode becomes forward biased, the
magnitude of the electric field in the space charge region decreases, but does not go to
zero or change direction. The photocurrent is always in the reverse-biased direction and
the net solar cell current is also always in the reverse-biased direction.

There are two limiting cases of interest. The short-circuit condition occurs when R =0 so
that V =0. The current in this case is referred to as the short-circuit current, or
…………………………………….. [2.1]
𝐼 = 𝐼𝑆𝐶 = 𝐼𝐿

The second limiting case is the open-circuit condition and occurs when R → ∞. The net
current is zero and the voltage produced is the open-circuit voltage. The photocurrent is
just balanced by the forward-biased junction current, so we have

𝑒𝑉𝑂𝐶
𝐼 = 0 = 𝐼𝐿 − 𝐼𝑆 [𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) − 1] …………………………. [2.2]
𝑘𝑇

We can find the open circuit voltage V oc as

𝐼𝐿
𝑉𝑂𝐶 = 𝑉𝑡 𝑙𝑛 (1 + ) ……………………………… [2.3]
𝐼𝑆

A plot of the diode current I as a function of the diode voltage V from Equation (2.0) is
shown in Figure 2.1. Take note of short-circuit current and open circuit voltage points on
the figure.

The power delivered to the load is

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𝑒𝑉
𝑃 = 𝑉 × 𝐼 = 𝐼𝐿 × 𝑉 − 𝐼𝑆 [𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) − 1] × 𝑉 …………..…… [2.4]
𝑘𝑇

We may find the current and voltage which will deliver the maximum power to the load
by setting the derivative equal to zero, or dP/dV = 0. Using Equation (2.4), we find

𝑑𝑃 𝑒𝑉𝑚 𝑒 𝑒𝑉𝑚
= 0 = 𝐼𝐿 − 𝐼𝑆 [𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) − 1] − 𝐼𝑆 𝑉𝑚 ( ) 𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( ) ………. [2.5]
𝑑𝑉 𝑘𝑇 𝑘𝑇 𝑘𝑇

where V m is the voltage that produces the maximum power. Rewriting Equation (2.5) in
the form

𝑉𝑚 𝑒𝑉 𝐼 ................................. [2.6]
(1 + ) 𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( 𝑚 ) = 1 + 𝐿
𝑉𝑡 𝑘𝑇 𝐼𝑆

The value of V m may be determined by trial and error. Figure 2.2 shows the maximum
power rectangle where Im is the current when V =Vm.

Figure 2.2: Maximum power rectangle of the solar cell V-I characteristics

2.1 Conversion Efficiency and Solar Concentration

The conversion efficiency of a solar cell is defined as the ratio of output electrical power
to incident optical power. For the maximum power output, we can write

𝑃𝑚 𝐼 𝑉
ή= × 100% = 𝑚 𝑚 × 100% ………………………… [2.7]
𝑃𝑖𝑛 𝑃𝑖𝑛
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The maximum possible current and the maximum possible voltage in the solar cell are Isc
and V oc, respectively. The ratio ImVm/IscVoc is called the fill factor and is a measure of
the realizable power from a solar cell. Typically, the fill factor is between 0.7 and 0.8.

The conventional pn junction solar cell has a single semiconductor bandgap energy. When
the cell is exposed to the solar spectrum, a photon with energy less than Eg will have no
effect on the electrical output power of the solar cell. A photon with energy greater than
Eg will contribute to the solar cell output power, but the fraction of photon energy that is
greater than Eg will eventually only be dissipated as heat. Figure 2.3 shows the solar
spectral irradiance (power per unit area per unit wavelength) where air mass zero
represents the solar spectrum outside the earth’s atmosphere and air mass one is the solar
spectrum at the earth’s surface at noon. The maximum efficiency of a silicon pn junction
solar cell is approximately 28 percent. Non-ideal factors, such as series resistance and
reflection from the semiconductor surface, will lower the conversion efficiency typically to
the range of 10 to 15 percent.

A large optical lens can be used to concentrate sunlight onto a solar cell so that the light
intensity can be increased up to several hundred times. The short-circuit current increases
linearly with light concentration while the open-circuit voltage increases only slightly with
concentration. Figure 2.4 shows the ideal solar cell efficiency at 300 K for two values of
solar concentration. We can see that the conversion efficiency increases only slightly with
optical concentration. The primary advantage of using concentration techniques is to
reduce the overall system cost since an optical lens is less expensive than an equivalent area
of solar cells.

Figure 2.4: Ideal solar cell efficiency at T = 300 K for

C =1 sun and for a C =1000 sun concentrations as a
Figure 2.3: Solar spectral function of bandgap energy.
irradiance.
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2.2 External solar cell parameters

The main parameters that are used to characterize the performance of solar cells are the
peak power Pmax, the short-circuit current density Jsc, the open-circuit voltage Voc, and
the fill factor FF. These parameters are determined from the illuminated J-V characteristic
as illustrated in Fig. 1.10 under topic I. The conversion efficiency ή can be determined from
these parameters.

2.2.1 Short-circuit current density

Short-circuit current Isc is the current that flows through the external circuit when the
electrodes of the solar cell are short circuited. The short-circuit current of a solar cell
depends on the photon flux density incident on the solar cell, which is determined by the
spectrum of the incident light. For a standard solar cell measurements, the spectrum is
standardized to the AM1.5 spectrum. The Isc depends on the area of the solar cell. In order
to remove the dependence of the solar cell area on Isc, often the short-circuit current
density is used to describe the maximum current delivered by a solar cell. The maximum
current that the solar cell can deliver strongly depends on the optical properties of the
solar cell, such as absorption in the absorber layer and reflection.

In the ideal case, Jsc is equal to Jph as can be easily derived from Eq. (1.29) under topic I.
Jph can be approximated by Eq. (1.30) also under topic I, which shows that in case of an
ideal diode (for example no surface recombination) and uniform generation, the critical
material parameters that determine Jph are the diffusion lengths of minority carriers.
Crystalline silicon solar cells can deliver under an AM1.5 spectrum a maximum possible
current density of 46 mA/cm 2. In laboratory c-Si solar cells the measured Jsc is above 42
mA/cm2, while commercial solar cell have a Jsc exceeding 35 mA/cm 2.

2.2.2 Open-circuit voltage

The open-circuit voltage is the voltage at which no current flows through the external
circuit. It is the maximum voltage that a solar cell can deliver. Voc corresponds to the
forward bias voltage, at which the dark current compensates the photocurrent. Voc
depends on the photo-generated current density and can be calculated from Eq. (1.29)
under topic I assuming that the net current is zero,

𝑘𝑇 𝐽𝑝ℎ
𝑉𝑂𝐶 = 𝑙𝑛 ( + 1) …………....…………………. [2.8]
𝑒 𝐽𝑠

This equation shows that Voc depends on the saturation current of the solar cell and the
photo-generated current. While Jph typically has a small variation, the key effect is the
saturation current, since this may vary by orders of magnitude. The saturation current
density, Js, depends on the recombination in the solar cell. Therefore, Voc is a measure of
the amount of recombination in the device. Laboratory crystalline silicon solar cells have
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a Voc of up to 720 mV under the standard AM1.5 conditions, while commercial solar cells
typically have Voc exceeding 600 mV.

2.2.3 Fill factor

The fill factor is the ratio between the maximum power (Pmax = JmpV mp) generated by a
solar cell and the product of Voc with Jsc (see Fig. 1.10 under topic I),

𝐽𝑚𝑝 𝑉𝑚𝑝 ................................................. [2.9]

𝐹𝐹 =
𝐽𝑠𝑐 𝑉𝑜𝑐

Assuming that the solar cell behaves as an ideal diode the fill factor can be expressed as a
function of open circuit voltage Voc,

𝑣𝑜𝑐 − ln⁡(𝑣𝑜𝑐 + 0.72) ………………………. [2.10]

𝐹𝐹 =
𝑣𝑜𝑐 + 1
where 𝑣𝑜𝑐 = (𝑉𝑜𝑐 × 𝑒)⁄𝑘𝑇 is a normalised voltage. Eq. (2.10) is a good approximation of
the ideal value of FF for voc > 10. The FF as a function of Voc is illustrated in Fig. 2.5. This
figure shows that FF does not change drastically with a change in Voc. For a solar cell with
a particular absorber, large variations in Voc are not common. For example, at standard
illumination conditions, the difference between the maximum open-circuit voltage
measured for a silicon laboratory device and a typical commercial solar cell is about 120
mV, giving a maximal FF of 0.85 and 0.83, respectively. However, the variation in
maximum FF can be significant for solar cells made from different materials. For example,
a GaAs solar cell may have a FF approaching 0.89.

Fig ure 2.5: The FF as a function of Voc for a solar cell with ideal diode behaviour.

However, in practical solar cells the dark diode current Eq. (1.28) under topic I does not
obey the Boltzmann approximation. The non-ideal diode is approximated by introducing
an ideality factor n, into the Boltzmann factor,
𝑒𝑉𝑎
𝑒𝑥𝑝 ( )
𝑛𝑘𝑇
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Fig. 2.5 also demonstrates the importance of the diode ideality factor when introduced
into the normalized voltage in Eq. (2.10). The ideality factor is a measure of the junction
quality and the type of recombination in a solar cell. For the ideal junction where the
recombination is represented by the recombination of the minority carriers in the quasi-
neutral regions the n is equal to 1. However, when other recombination mechanisms occur,
the n can have a value of 2. A high n value not only lowers the FF, but since it signals a
high recombination, it leads to a low Voc. Eq. (2.10) describes a maximum achievable FF.
In practice the FF is often lower due to the presence of parasitic resistive losses.

2.2.4 Conversion efficiency

The conversion efficiency is calculated as the ratio between the maximal generated power
and the incident power. The irradiance value Pin of 1000 W/m 2 for the AM1.5 spectrum
has become a standard for measuring the conversion efficiency of solar cells,

𝑃𝑚𝑎𝑥 𝐽𝑚𝑝 𝑉𝑚𝑝 𝐽𝑠𝑐 𝑉𝑜𝑐 𝐹𝐹 ……………………. [2.11]

ή= = =
𝑃𝑖𝑛 𝑃𝑖𝑛 𝑃𝑖𝑛
Typical external parameters of a crystalline silicon solar cell as shown are; Jsc is approx. 35
mA/cm2, Voc up to 0.65 V and FF in the range 0.75 to 0.80. The conversion efficiency lies
in the range of 17 to 18%.

2.3 The external quantum efficiency

The external quantum efficiency EQE(o) is the fraction of photons incident on the solar
cell that create electron-hole pairs in the absorber, which are successfully collected. It is
wavelength dependent and is usually measured by illuminating the solar cell with
monochromatic light of wavelength o and measuring the photocurrent Iph through the
solar cell. The external quantum efficiency is then determined as
𝐼𝑝ℎ (0 )
𝐸𝑄𝐸(0 ) = …………………………. [2.12]
𝑒𝛷𝑃ℎ ( 0)
where e is the elementary charge and Φph is the photon flux incident on the solar cell.
Since Iph is dependent on the bias voltage, the bias voltage must be fixed. The photon flux
is usually determined by measuring the EQE of a calibrated photodiode under the same
light source.

Figure 2.6 illustrates a typical EQE for a high quality crystalline silicon based solar cell. We
can identify the major optical loss mechanisms for such a solar cell: For short wavelengths
only a small fraction of the light is converted into electron-hole pairs. Most photons are
already absorbed in the layers that the light traverses prior to the absorber layer. For long
wavelengths, the penetration depth of the light exceeds the optical thickness of the
absorber. Then the absorber itself becomes transparent so that most of the light leaves the
solar cell before it can be absorbed. We can see that for this type of solar cells the EQE is
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close to 1 for a broad wavelength band. Hence, in this band almost all absorbed photons
are converted into electron-hole pairs that can leave the solar cell.

Figure 2.6: The external quantum efficiency of a high-quality crystalline

silicon based solar cell.

When a bias voltage of 0 V is applied, the measured photocurrent density equals the short
circuit current density. When applying a sufficiently large reversed bias voltage, it can be
assured that nearly all photo-generated charge carriers in the intrinsic layer are collected.
Thus, this measurement can be used to study the optical effectiveness of the design, i.e.
light trapping and light absorption in inactive layers, such as the TCO layer, doped layers
and the back reflector.

2.4 Optical Losses

In solar optics, a part of the light is reflected from and the other part is transmitted when
light arrives on an interface between two media. The interface is therefore characterized
by the wavelength dependent reflectance R() and transmittance T(). All the reflections
and transmissions at the different interfaces in the solar cell result in a total reflectance
between the solar cell and the surrounding air. Hence, a part of the incident energy that
can be converted into a usable energy by the solar cell is lost by reflection. We shall denote
the total effective reflectance in the wavelength range of interest as R*.

In most c-Si solar cells, thin metal strips are placed on the front side of the solar cell that
serve as front electrode. The metal-covered area does not allow the light to enter the solar
cell because it reflects or slightly absorbs the incident light. The area that is covered by the
electrode effectively decreases the active area of the solar cell. When we denote the total
area of the cell as Atot and the cell area that is not covered by the electrode as Af, the
fraction of the active area of the cell is determined by the ratio

𝐴𝑓
𝐶𝑓 = ………………………………… [2.13]
𝐴𝑡𝑜𝑡
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which is called the coverage factor Cf . These loss is called the shading loss . The design of
the front electrode is of great importance since it should one the one hand minimize losses
due to the series resistance of the front electrode, i.e. should be designed with sufficient
cross-section. The optimal design of the front electrode is therefore a trade-off between a
high coverage factor and a sufficiently low series resistance of the front electrode.

When light penetrates into a material, it will be partially absorbed as it propagates through
the material. The absorption of light in the material depends on its absorption coefficient
and the layer thickness. In general, light is absorbed in all layers of the solar cell. All the
absorption in layers different from the absorber layer is loss. It is called the parasitic
absorption . Further, due to the limited thickness of the absorber layer, not all the light
entering the absorber layer is absorbed. Incomplete absorption in the absorber due to its
limited thickness is an additional loss that lowers the energy conversion efficiency.

The incomplete absorption loss can be described by the internal optical quantum efficiency
IQEop, which is defined as the probability of a photon being absorbed in the absorber
material. Since there is a chance that a highly energetic photon can generate more than
one electron-hole pair, we also define the quantum efficiency for carrier generation hg
which represents the number of electron-hole pairs generated by one absorbed photon.
Usually hg is assumed to be unity.