TY - JOUR
T1 - Coupled optoelectronic simulation and optimization of thin-film photovoltaic solar cells
AU - Anderson, Tom H.
AU - Civiletti, Benjamin J.
AU - Monk, Peter B.
AU - Lakhtakia, Akhlesh
N1 - Funding Information:
A. Lakhtakia thanks the Charles Godfrey Binder Endowment at the Pennsylvania State University for ongoing support of his research. The research of T.H. Anderson, B.J. Civiletti, and P.B. Monk was partially supported by the US National Science Foundation under grant number DMS-1619904 . The research of A. Lakhtakia was partially supported by US National Science Foundation under grant number DMS-1619901 .
Funding Information:
A. Lakhtakia thanks the Charles Godfrey Binder Endowment at the Pennsylvania State University for ongoing support of his research. The research of T.H. Anderson, B.J. Civiletti, and P.B. Monk was partially supported by the US National Science Foundation under grant number DMS-1619904. The research of A. Lakhtakia was partially supported by US National Science Foundation under grant number DMS-1619901.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2020/4/15
Y1 - 2020/4/15
N2 - A design tool was formulated for optimizing the efficiency of inorganic, thin-film, photovoltaic solar cells. The solar cell can have multiple semiconductor layers in addition to antireflection coatings, passivation layers, and buffer layers. The solar cell is backed by a metallic grating which is periodic along a fixed direction. The rigorous coupled-wave approach is used to calculate the electron-hole-pair generation rate. The hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin method is used to solve the drift-diffusion equations that govern charge-carrier transport in the semiconductor layers. The chief output is the solar-cell efficiency which is maximized using the differential evolution algorithm to determine the optimal dimensions and bandgaps of the semiconductor layers.
AB - A design tool was formulated for optimizing the efficiency of inorganic, thin-film, photovoltaic solar cells. The solar cell can have multiple semiconductor layers in addition to antireflection coatings, passivation layers, and buffer layers. The solar cell is backed by a metallic grating which is periodic along a fixed direction. The rigorous coupled-wave approach is used to calculate the electron-hole-pair generation rate. The hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin method is used to solve the drift-diffusion equations that govern charge-carrier transport in the semiconductor layers. The chief output is the solar-cell efficiency which is maximized using the differential evolution algorithm to determine the optimal dimensions and bandgaps of the semiconductor layers.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jcp.2020.109242
DO - 10.1016/j.jcp.2020.109242
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85078633931
SN - 0021-9991
VL - 407
JO - Journal of Computational Physics
JF - Journal of Computational Physics
M1 - 109242
ER -
