ELENG134 Project Solved

For this project, you’ll design a solar cell with the following structure:

Positive contact

Negative contact
For this structure, you’ll optimize the thickness and doping for the absorber layer for

maximum power conversion efficiency, under illumination from the Sun. You can choose any of the following material as the absorber (first come first offered):
1. Lead halide perovskite (any composition reported in the literature)
2. GaAs

3. Polycrystalline Silicon
4. Monocrystalline Silicon
5. CIGS
6. CdTe
Each material can be chosen by up to 5 people. Sign-up here for the materials is here. The last date to sign-up is April 4, 2020.
You’ll need to use MATLAB for this project. Instructions on how to access and install MATLAB is provided here.
We will assume the generated electron-hole pairs are readily separated by the contacts and collected, and we’ll use a constant value of series resistance Rs and shunt resistance Rsh as an input to the simulation.

Download the code from the GitHub link https://github.com/zomair/ELENG134-UC- Berkeley. You’ll only need to use the device_params.m file to provide inputs to the simulation and run PV_JV.m to obtain the output Voc, Jsc, FF, Vmpp, and Impp.
Task 1: Reproduce the Shockley-Queisser limit.

Plot the solar cell efficiency vs bandgap, as shown above. Consider the Sun is a blackbody emitter at 6000K, and the solar cell is at 300K. Assume perfect material quality for the solar cell and step-function absorptivity of the solar cell. (Due Wed April 8)
Task 2: Find the material parameters

From literature, find the absorption coefficient as a function of wavelength, SRH lifetime, electron and hole effective mass, refractive index, and electron and hole Auger recombination coefficient at 300K, for the material that you chose. (Due Wed April 8).
Task 3: SQ limit for AM 1.5

Plot the SQ limit, like task 1, using AM 1.5 as the incident spectrum instead of approximating the Sun as a blackbody at 6000K. Compare with the results from task 1. (Due Wed April 8) Task 4: Plot the solar cell efficiency vs the thickness of the absorber layer. What determines the optimum thickness? (Due Wed April 15).

Task 5: Doping optimization

Plot doping concentration (donor doping ND) vs solar cell efficiency, and find the optimum doping for your solar cell.