Abstract

  Most state-of-art CIGS based solar cells employs CdS as buffer layer. However, due to its toxic nature, there is need for searching possible alternatives. In this work, the performance of the CIGS solar cells was simulated using SCAPS-1D software. Photovoltaic parameters of CIGS solar cells using different buffer layer materials; CdS, ZnS, ZnO, ZnSe and InS were simulated. The optimized thickness of buffer and absorber layers was found to be 0.02µm and 0.75µm respectively for the selected ZnO buffer layer. Also, for the optimized cell, the V_oc, J_sc, FF, and efficiency were found to be 0.8842V, 34.3739mA/cm2, 80.63% and 24.51% respectively. Finally it was found that ZnO can be a good material that can substitute the toxic CdS element for the production of solar cell and promise high efficiency.

Keywords: Buffer Layer; CIGS; efficiency; FF; J_sc; Photovoltaic; V_oc

References

1. Sharma S., et al. “Solar cells: In Research and Applications- A Review”. Material Science and Application 6 (2015): 1145-1155.
2. Poortmans J and Arkhipov V. “Thin film solar cells: fabrication, characterization and applications”. John Wiley and Sons, West Sussex, England 5 (2006).
3. Arnulf JW. “Progress in chalcopyrite compound semiconductor research for photovoltaic applications and transfer of results into actual solar cell production”. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 95 (2011): 1509 -1517.
4. Kazmerski LL. “Best research solar cell efficiencies” (2016). 
5. Chelvanathan P., et al. “Performance analysis of copper-indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) solar cells with various buffer layers by SCAPS”. Current Applied Physics 10 (2010): S387-S391.
6. Lindahl J., et al. “In line Cu (In,Ga)Se2 Co-evaporation for high efficiency solar cells and modules”. IEEEJ Photovoltaics 3 (2013): 1100-1105.
7. Mostefaoui M., et al. “Simulation of High Efficiency CIGS solar cells with SCAPS-1D software”. International conference on technology and materials for renewable energy, Energy Procedia 74 (2015): 736-744.
8. Burgelman M., et al. SCAPS manual version 3.3.06, Department of ELIS, University of Gent, Belgium (2016): 1-110.
9. Ouedraogo S., et al. “Numerical Analysis of Copper-Indium- Gallium-Diselinide-Based Solar Cells by SCAPS-1D”. International Journal of Photoenergy 2 (2013): 1-9.
10. Oubda D., et al. “Numerical simulation of Cu (In,Ga)Se2 Solar cells performances”. Journal of Energy and Power Engineering 9 (2015): 1047-1055.
11. Asaduzzaman Md., et al. “Non-Toxic Buffer Layers in Flexible Cu (In,Ga)Se2 Photovoltaic Cell Applications with Optimized Absorber Thickness”. International Journal of Photoenergy (2017).
12. Khoshsirat N., et al. “Analysis of absorber layer properties effect on CIGS solar cell performance using SCAPS”. Optik – International Journal for Light and Electron Optics 126 (2015): 681-686.
13. Feroz Ali., et al. “Numerical Simulation and Observation the Characteristics of CIGS Thin Film Solar Cell using SCAPS-1D”. American Journal of Engineering Research (AJER) 7 (2018): 176-182.
14. Heriche H., et al. “High-efficiency CIGS Solar Cells with optimization of layers thickness and doping”. Optik-International Journal for Light and Electron Optics (2016). 

Citation

Citation: Mansur Said., et al. “Determination of the Effect of Layer Thickness on the Efficiency of Cigs-Based Solar Cells Using Scaps-1d". Acta Scientific Applied Physics 1.2 (2020): 10-15.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Mansur Said., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.