Modeling of High-Efficiency Multi-Junction Polymer and Hybrid Solar Cells to Absorb Infrared Light

Jobeda J Khanam; Simon Y Foo

doi:10.3390/polym11020383

Modeling of High-Efficiency Multi-Junction Polymer and Hybrid Solar Cells to Absorb Infrared Light

Polymers (Basel). 2019 Feb 22;11(2):383. doi: 10.3390/polym11020383.

Authors

Jobeda J Khanam¹, Simon Y Foo²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA. jk16c@my.fsu.edu.
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA. foo@eng.famu.fsu.edu.

Abstract

In this paper, we present our work on high-efficiency multi-junction polymer and hybrid solar cells. The transfer matrix method is used for optical modeling of an organic solar cell, which was inspired by the McGehee Group in Stanford University. The software simulation calculates the optimal thicknesses of the active layers to provide the best short circuit current (J_SC) value. First, we show three designs of multi-junction polymer solar cells, which can absorb sunlight beyond the 1000 nm wavelengths. Then we present a novel high-efficiency hybrid (organic and inorganic) solar cell, which can absorb the sunlight with a wavelength beyond 2500 nm. Approximately 12% efficiency was obtained for the multi-junction polymer solar cell and 20% efficiency was obtained from every two-, three- and four-junction hybrid solar cell under 1 sun AM1.5 illumination.

Keywords: fill factor (FF); hybrid solar cell (HSC); open circuit voltage (Voc); organic/polymer solar cell (OSC); power conversion efficiency (PCE); short circuit current density (Jsc).