Numerical Simulation Study of The Increase in Electrical Efficiency of the CIGS-Based Solar Cell by SCAPS-1D

Abstract

Solar cells are currently the focus of a great deal of research. The aim is to reduce their cost price. To achieve this, we need to reduce the mass of the materials and increase the conversion efficiency of these solar cells. This has motivated research into the use of thin films such as a-Si, CdTe, CIGS. This increase in efficiency requires optimizing the performance of the photovoltaic parameters. In this modeling and simulation work, we use the SCAPS-1D software to study the effect of the recombination speed of the electrons and holes in the CIGS layer, the effect of the thickness of the layers and the effect of the gap energy of each layer of the material used for this solar cell on the short-circuit current Jsc, the open-circuit voltage Voc, the form factor FF and the electrical efficiency η of the CIGS cell for a Mo/p-CIGS/p-Si/In2S3/i-ZnO/Al-ZnO single-junction structure. In this study, we found that recombination speed affects the efficiency of the photovoltaic cell. The gap energy of the absorber layers influences the cell's efficiency, while the other layers (In2S3, ZnO, Al-ZnO) do not have a great influence on solar cell performance and increasing the thickness of the absorber layer has a major influence on efficiency, increasing it up to a certain limit. The thicknesses of the CIGS, p-Si, In2S3, i-ZnO and Al‑ZnO layers need to be in the order of 0.3µm, 0.8µm, 0.05µm, 0.07µm and 0.1µm respectively to achieve better efficiency (31.42%).