Effect of light intensity on performance of silicon-based thin film solar cells

Theoretical and experimental studies were performed to explore the effect of light intensity on the performance of silicon-based thin film solar cells. The theoretical study was conducted using AMPS-1D (Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Structures) to analyze how the device structure affects the performance of silicon-based solar cells under various concentration ratios of sunlight. We calculated a-Si:H and ¿c-Si:H p-i-n type single-junction solar cells, and also experimentally evaluated a-Si:H, a-SiO:H and ¿c-Si:H solar cells. From both simulation and measurement results, we confirmed that the V_oc logarithmically increases with increasing the light intensity. Moreover, from simulation results, we also observed that the defect density and thickness of i-layer strongly influence the light-intensity dependence of a-Si:H solar cells.