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Renewable Energy System: Topics: Week: 6 Level: 6 Program: Be Electrical Engineering

Thin film solar cells have a thin absorber layer that can absorb more photons than thicker materials. The document discusses several types of thin film solar cells including amorphous silicon, CIGS, perovskite, and CZTS. CIGS cells have achieved the highest efficiency of 21% in the lab due to their ability to absorb more photons with increased thickness. Perovskite cells also show high efficiency but need more work on stability, while CZTS is promising because its materials are abundant on Earth.

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43 views19 pages

Renewable Energy System: Topics: Week: 6 Level: 6 Program: Be Electrical Engineering

Thin film solar cells have a thin absorber layer that can absorb more photons than thicker materials. The document discusses several types of thin film solar cells including amorphous silicon, CIGS, perovskite, and CZTS. CIGS cells have achieved the highest efficiency of 21% in the lab due to their ability to absorb more photons with increased thickness. Perovskite cells also show high efficiency but need more work on stability, while CZTS is promising because its materials are abundant on Earth.

Uploaded by

danial ahmad
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Renewable Energy System

TOPICS: THIN FILM SOLAR CELL, AMORPHOUS


SOLAR CELL, CIGS SOLAR CELL
WEEK: 6
LECTURE: 12
LEVEL: 6 T H SEMESTER 3 R D YEAR
PROGRAM: BE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
 
COURSE TEACHER: ENGR DR. OBAID UR
REHMAN ([email protected])
ACCESS AT: portal.suit.edu.pk
Electrical Engineering Department, SUIT Peshawar
DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 1
Thin film Solar Cells (TFSC)

 
Thin film Solar Cells (TFSC)
TFSC is made of much thin layer absorber material of about a hundred micrometers
thin placed on the flexible substrate,
which have a property to absorb the number of photons in a very large amount as
compared to other types of solar cells i.e., silicon wafer based.
Thin Film Solar Cells have a high absorption coefficient approximately equal to (104
or 105 cm-1) because it is composed of direct band gap semi-conductor material.
It can absorb the maximum amount of incident sunlight rays with a thickness of
about 1 to 2 , thin film solar cells are composed of materials that provide high
strength to layers eliminating defect and impurities.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 2


Recently thin film solar cells have achieved recorded efficiencies i.e., about 13% to 21% on
the laboratory scale, that’s why many types of thin film solar cell technology are widely
used in solar cell market due to its high efficiency and relatively low cost which intends to
produce a large amount of electricity.

Types of Thin Film Solar Cells


 There are various types of thin film solar cells i.e., a-Si, CIGS, perovskite solar cells and
novel material that has been investigated i.e., CZTS solar cell.

 These four types are as follows:

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 3


Figure Thin Film Solar Panel

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 4


Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell

Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell


Amorphous is a type of thin film solar cell that has no proper shape
or silicon material is not arranged or structured on molecular level,
amorphous silicon solar cell is referred to the second generation,
it is the oldest and first type of thin film solar cell since thin film
technology was established,
 it is made of non-crystalline silicon wafer based solar cells, it has
cheaper manufacturing process as compared to crystalline silicon
solar cells.
DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 5
It is widely used due to its low cost, it is relatively abundant, and
contains no toxicity as compared to other semiconductor materials,
but the major hurdle is with its efficiency which is affecting the use
of this material for thin film technology in future,
up till now the highest efficiency achieved by amorphous thin film
solar cell is up to 10.5% which is considered to be a low efficiency
The structure of the a-Si solar cell is given in Figure.
I–Layer is used as an absorber layer, p-layer and n-layer are used as
carrier transport layers.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 6


Figure Structure of a-Si Solar Cell

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 7


Copper Indium Gallium Selenide Solar Cell

Copper Indium Gallium Selenide Solar Cell


Another type of TFSC that belongs to the second generation i.e., CIGS which has
gained popularity in the solar cell market due to its high efficiency.
CIGS TFSC is the most promising candidate in terms of efficiency.
It has achieved efficiency of about 14 % in the field and 21 % efficiency on
laboratory scale.
The typical structure of CIGS solar cell is composed of four layers given in Figure,
in which top most layer i.e., windows layer through which photons are
transferred to absorber layer, buffer layer helps in reduction of recombination
losses. For recombination of holes back contact is used.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 8


Figure Typical Structure of CIGS Solar Cell

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 9


A report is presented on CIGS solar cells that the efficiency has been increased
from 16.39 % to 21.3 % when Si new layer of 1mm was added to CIGS material.
The efficiency of CIGS material is directly proportional to the thickness of the
absorbing layer, as the thickness of the absorbing layer increases efficiency will
also increase.
It is shown that when absorber layer i.e., CIGS layer thickness is increased to
1mm from 0.1mm so parameters such as Voc, Jsc and FF will keep constant while
efficiency will increase up to 21.3 %.
The absorption of photons will strongly depend on the thickness of the active
layer, more thickly is the photoactive layer more photons will be absorbed
therefore more E-H pairs will be generated.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 10


This will lead to an increase in efficiency, Voc will decrease less i.e., from 0.7668
to 0.7436 V whereas Jsc will increase from 21.26 mA/cm2 to 34.47 mA/cm2 and FF
will increase from 80.38 % to 83.21 % as shown in Figure.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 11


Figure Impact of CIGS absorber layer thickness on performance
parameters

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 12


Perovskite solar Cell

Perovskite solar Cell


Perovskite solar cells belong to third generation thin film solar cells.
It has shown the ability to overcome current efficiency crises as
compared to other semiconductor materials.
Perovskite solar cell has relatively low cost as compared to other
thin film solar cells i.e., CIGS and CdTe
Perovskite solar cells although gaining popularity due to its better
efficiency but the critical hurdle is with its stability.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 13


The planar structure of perovskite solar cell given in Figure,
when sunlight rays are absorber by perovskite absorber layer
separation of E-H pair occurs due to which holes are collected at
metal electrodes and electrons are transmitted to Electron
transporting layer (ETL) hence photocurrent is produced.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 14


Figure Planar Structure of Perovskite Solar Cell

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 15


Copper Zinc Tin Sulphide (CZTS) Solar Cell

 Copper Zinc Tin Sulphide (CZTS) Solar Cell


Copper Zinc Tin Sulphide i.e., Cu2ZnSnS4 belongs to Group 1-2-4-6 semiconductor
family,
CZTS is composed of quaternary compound p-type direct band gap semiconductor
material.
The most important factor which provides benefit to CZTS that it is composed of
‘Earth Abundant’ elements.
Earth abundant material means that it can sustain the material at a low cost.
Therefore, every possible resource will be used by manufacturers to maintain the
durability, cost and efficiency of material and the material will not run out of phase.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 16


To make photovoltaic thin film solar cell material ideally stable,
efficient and less costly,
the following characteristics needs to be considered i.e., the
material should have high absorption co-efficient, have a large band
gap, should contain cheaper elements, it must be earth abundant,
and contains no toxicity(harmfulness).
CZTS has an additional advantage that its band gap value can be
varied by replacing Selenium with sulphide.
CZTS has band gap about 1.4-1.5 eV, and whose absorption co-
efficient is larger i.e., (≥ 104 cm-1).
DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 17
Besides these physical features, CZTS is composed of non-toxic,
elements,
due to these properties and additional advantages of CZTS over
other materials, researchers are motivated to further proceed with
the development of CZTS material.
Recently 12.6% and 13.2% efficiencies has been obtained for copper
zinc tin sulphide structures i.e., Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4n and Cu2ZnSnS4
respectively.

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 18


Figure Schematic diagram of the origin of Cu2ZnSnS4

DR. OBAID UR REHMAN (SUIT PESHAWAR) [email protected] 19

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