Analytical and Simulation Study of Solar cells

This book is composed of six chapters which describes solar cells from basics to advanced level. Readers will find an introduction and development of solar cells in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, an analytical study has been carried out on the light generated excess minority carrier distribution and photocurrent in the front region as well as in the base region of a p+ n junction silicon solar cell. Analysis of a p+ n n+ back surface field (BSF) silicon solar cell and its comparison with the conventional p+ n structure have been carried out in chapter 3 of this book, considering various device parameters. In addition to the photocurrent, the dark current of a solar cell plays a vital role in measuring the overall efficiency of a solar cell. In chapter 4 of this book, dark current of solar cell has been calculated and analysed. Chapter 5 of this book has been developed with the calculation of efficiency of different solar cell structures. In chapter 6, Numerical simulation of a thin film heterojunction solar cell has been conducted under different conditions, and results obtained from this simulation have been analyzed to give the optimized structure of the proposed device.