Numerical simulations of novel InGaN solar cells

Author

Brown, G.F. ; Ager, J.W., III ; Walukiewicz, W. ; Wu, J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mater. Sci. & Eng., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

7-12 June 2009

Abstract

Finite element simulations of novel InGaN solar cells, requiring no p-type InGaN, were carried out using the commercial software package APSYS. Simulations show that efficient, compositionally graded p-GaN/n-In_xGa_1-xN solar cells can be achieved, provided the graded layer is confined within the depletion region. These compositionally graded solar cells can be used as the top cell in an InGaN/Si double-junction cell to achieve AM 1.5 efficiencies over 27% using realistic material parameters.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; finite element analysis; gallium compounds; indium compounds; silicon; solar cells; wide band gap semiconductors; APSYS software package; GaN-In_xGa_1-xN; InGaN-Si; compositionally graded solar cells; depletion region; double-junction cell; finite element simulations; Charge carrier processes; Dielectric materials; Finite element methods; Gallium nitride; Indium; Interpolation; Numerical simulation; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Software packages;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2009 34th IEEE

Conference_Location

Philadelphia, PA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2949-3

Electronic_ISBN

0160-8371

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2009.5411535

Filename

5411535