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Hybrid Solar Cells Based in Silicon Nanowires: Electronic Simulation and Optimization

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Abstract

This paper presents recent progress in computational modeling on blend morphology of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) dispersed in a conjugated polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) P3HT hybrid solar cells. Mixtures of poly-(3-hexyl-thiophene) as electron-donor and silicon nanowires as electron-acceptor materials have been widely investigated. In this work, we extracted five parameters such as the ideality factor, the saturation current, the photocurrent, the series and the shunt resistances from measured current–voltage characteristics. These parameters are used in the simulation study to obtain the theoretical curves by using the Newton-Raphson method developed in MATLAB code. A good agreement is obtained between theoretical model and experimental measurement of electrical characteristics. Taking the advantage of the simulation study, we determined the solar cell parameters to study the effect of SiNWs concentration, the type of solvent used for film fabrication and the thickness of photoactive layer in the performance of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:SiNWs/Al hybrid solar cells in target to achieve the optimal condition: 15% of SiNWs dispersed within P3HT matrix fabricated from THF solution and 115 nm thickness photoactive layer with fill factor FF and efficiency η equal to 48% and 0.08%, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr. Sadok ben Dkhil for the support rendered to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Basic Sciences, Deanship of Preparatory Year and Supporting Studies, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam, 34212, Saudi Arabia

    Hana Faltakh & Amira Ben Ahmed

  2. Laboratoire Physique des Matériaux, Structures et Propriétés Groupe Physique des Composants et Dispositifs Nanométriques, Faculté des sciences de Bizerte, 7021 Jarzouna, Bizerte, Tunisia

    Ramzi Bourguiga

Authors
  1. Hana Faltakh
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  2. Ramzi Bourguiga
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  3. Amira Ben Ahmed
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Contributions

Dr. Hana Faltakh designed, analyzed the results, prepared figures and wrote the manuscript. Dr. Ramzi Bourguiga supervised the research. Dr. Amira ben Ahmed discussed the results.

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Correspondence to Hana Faltakh.

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Faltakh, H., Bourguiga, R. & Ahmed, A.B. Hybrid Solar Cells Based in Silicon Nanowires: Electronic Simulation and Optimization. Silicon 13, 4201–4213 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-021-01276-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-021-01276-0

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