Simulation of a Silicon Based Solar Cell Using TCAD-Silvaco Tools

Abstract

The most well-known solar cells are made of semiconductors, mainly based on crystalline silicon (mono- or poly-crystalline). It consists in converting solar radiation into electricity. Generally, the solar cell device that can carry out this function is essentially a single PN junction with large surface. The most of solar cells on the market today are based on silicon crystal. Currently, multiple researches are in progress in order to realize cells with multi junctions, tandem, by connecting to the silicon cell, another cell based on a material with wide gap energy in order to obtain a better efficiency. In this paper, we studied the efficiency of a silicon solar cell by using TCAD—Silvaco tools. The silicon solar cell structure was defined using Athena 2D process simulator that permit to create the structure in order to study it and use it in predictive simulation. On the other hand, the electrical simulation was performed using Atlas simulator. After simulation, the final output parameters are Voc = 0.61 V, Jsc = 23.267 mA.cm⁻², FF = 0.795 and 11.30% of efficiency.