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Simulation of In0.65Ga0.35 N single-junction solar cell

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2007 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40 7335

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IOP PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF PHYSICS D: APPLIED PHYSICS
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40 (2007) 7335–7338 doi:10.1088/0022-3727/40/23/013

Simulation of In0.65Ga0.35 N
single-junction solar cell
Xiaobin Zhang1 , Xiaoliang Wang, Hongling Xiao, Cuibai Yang,
Junxue Ran, Cuimei Wang, Qifeng Hou and Jinmin Li
1
Novel Semiconductor Material Lab, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, PO Box 912, Beijing 100083, People’s Republic of China
E-mail: xbzhang@semi.ac.cn

Received 7 September 2007, in final form 30 September 2007

Published 16 November 2007
Online at stacks.iop.org/JPhysD/40/7335

Abstract
The performances of In0.65 Ga0.35 N single-junction solar cells with different
structures, including various doping densities and thicknesses of each layer,
have been simulated. It is found that the optimum efficiency of a
In0.65 Ga0.35 N solar cell is 20.284% with 5 × 1017 cm−3 carrier concentration
of the front and basic regions, a 130 nm thick p-layer and a 270 nm thick
n-layer.
(Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

1. Introduction

With the revised bandgap of InN at ∼0.7 eV [1,2], the bandgap

of InGaN alloys can be varied continuously from 0.7 to 3.4 eV.
So the InGaN alloys offer a great possibility of designing and
fabricating ultra-high efficiency tandem solar cells using a
ternary alloy system. Although InGaN alloys are becoming
familiar in electronics, there are few reports about InGaN
photovoltaic (PV) devices. Jani et al [3] have designed InGaN
p–i–n and quantum-well solar cells, in which InGaN is treated
as the active layer. Hamzaoui et al [4] have investigated the
theoretical possibilities of InGaN tandem PV structures. And
Yang et al [5] have studied the PV effects in InGaN p–n Figure 1. Structure of an InGaN SJ solar cell.
junctions. However, insufficient literature about numerical
simulations for designing a best-performance InGaN single- uses the first-principles continuity and Poisson’s equations
junction (SJ) cell has been found so far. approach to analyse the transport behaviour of semiconductor
This paper calculates the optimum efficiency of the InGaN electronic and optoelectronic device structures.
SJ cells and accordingly the best parameters of the PV The structure as designed is shown in figure 1. For simple
structures, which include the doping density and thickness of simulations, we suppose that the reflection coefficients of front
each layer. InGaN SJ solar cells are the basic components and back surfaces are both 10% [6, 7].
of the high-efficiency InGaN tandem cells. So the work in
this paper is important and indispensable for designing and 2.2. Parameters for simulations
fabricating InGaN tandem solar cells.
The detailed balance limit-efficiency of a SJ solar cell can be
achieved with about 1.31 eV material bandgap under AM1.5G
2. Modelling and simulations
illumination [8], which is used in AMPS. So the In content of
2.1. Software and structure InGaN layers can be defined with 65%. Here the In content of
InGaN at 300 K is calculated by the following equation:
In this paper, we use the analysis of microelectronic and
photonic structures (AMPS) to analyses InGaN PV cells. It Eg (Inx Ga1−x N) = 0.7x + 3.4(1 − x) − 1.43x(1 − x) (1)

0022-3727/07/237335+04$30.00 © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK 7335

X Zhang et al

with a constant bowing parameter of b = 1.43 eV [9]. So all it was found that the total 400 nm thick In0.65 Ga0.35 N SJ
the simulations in this paper are for In0.65 Ga0.35 N p–n junction cells could absorb 98.3% incidence light intensity (shown in
solar cells at 300 K. figure 2). So we chose the optimum total thickness as 400 nm
For calculations, the carrier mobility model of InGaN is in the following simulations.
assumed to be similar to GaN [10]:
µmax,i − µmin,i 3.2. Best doping concentrations
µi (N) = µmin,i + , (2)
1 + (N/Ng,i )γi As the total thickness of the cell was 400 nm, the efficiencies of
the cells with continuous values of the acceptor concentrations
where i = n, p for electrons and holes, respectively, and NA and different ratios of NA /ND were calculated (ND : donor
N is the doping concentration, while the model parameters concentration). The efficiency of a solar cell was related to the
µmax,i , µmin,i , Ng,i and γi depend on the type of semiconductor short circuit current density Jsc and the open circuit voltage
material and their values are listed in table 1. Voc using the fill factor FF (equation (3)). As was known,
The other parameters used in the simulations are shown the carrier concentrations would have a crucial effect on Jsc
in table 2. and Voc .
Jsc Voc FF
η= . (3)
3. Results and discussions Pin
Firstly, Jsc increased with decreasing doping concentration Ni
These simulations have been made for choosing the (i = A or D), since the collection efficiency, which affected
best structure parameters for the optimal performance of Jsc directly, would be enhanced due to the increasing carrier
In0.65 Ga0.35 N SJ cells. The proper total thickness was diffusion length when Ni decreased. The minority carrier
calculated first, followed by the optimum doping concentration diffusion length L was given by
and the best thickness of the front layer. √
L = Dτ , (4)
3.1. Proper total thickness of the solar cell
where τ was the minority carrier lifetime and D the minority
First, we calculated the proper total thickness of the solar cell carrier diffusivity. As was known, the Einstein relation was
by simulating the absorbance of the cell. As was known, the
monochromatic light intensity decreased exponentially with D = (kB T /q)µ, (5)
the transmission depth, that is, the absorbed light intensity where µ was the carrier mobility. From equations (2), (4) and
increased sharply and saturated quickly, which were similar to (5), we could see that L increased ultimately with decreasing
the wide solar spectrum. By calculating the absorbencies of doping concentration. So, Jsc increased when the doping
the In0.65 Ga0.35 N SJ solar cells with various thicknesses under concentration was decreased (figure 3).
AM1.5G illumination (100 mW cm−2 , 0.32 ∼ 1.32 µm), However, Voc decreased with decreasing doping level
(figure 3). Voc of a p–n junction solar cell was given by the
Table 1. The values of the parameters µmax,i , µmin,i , Ng,i and γi for following equation:
equation (2).  
kB T Jsc
Type of µmax,i µmin,i Ng,i Voc = ln +1 , (6)
carriers (cm2 V−1 s−1 ) (cm2 V−1 s−1 ) (cm−3 ) γi q J0
 
Electrons 1000 55 2 × 10 17
1.0 Dn Dp
Holes 170 3 3 × 1017 2.0 J0 = qn2i + . (7)
L n N A Lp N D

Table 2. The parameters for the In0.65 Ga0.35 N material at 300 Ka .

Parameters Values Expressions References
Relative 13.27 0.65εInN + 0.35εGaN [11, 12]
permittivity ε
Electron 5.56 χGaN + 0.7 × (3.4 − Eg ) [11, 13]
affinity χ (eV)
Effective density of states in 1.39 × 1018 0.65NCInN + 0.35NCGaN [11]
the conduction band NC (cm−3 )
Effective density of states 5.06 × 1019 0.65NVInN + 0.35NVGaN [11]
in the valence band NV (cm−3 )

Absorption α(λ) 2.2 × 105 1.24/λ − Eg [13]
coefficient α (cm−1 )
Carrier 6.5 — [14]
lifetime τp (ns)b
Sp0 , SpL , Sn0 , SnL (cm s−1 )c 1000 — [15]

a
Here, Eg is the bandgap of In0.65 Ga0.35 N, which is 1.31 eV.
b
The data are supposed to be equal to the carrier lifetime of GaN.
c
We assume the surface recombination velocities are of the same order as the ones calculated by Aleksiejunas et al [15].

7336

Figure 2. The absorbency of the In0.65 Ga0.35 N solar cell under
AM1.5G illumination versus the total cell thickness L.
Figure 3. The dependence of short circuit current density Jsc and
open circuit voltage Voc on the doping concentration NA . Here, the
value of ND was equal to NA .
Figure 4. Efficiencies calculated with various doping
concentrations.
From equations (6) and (7), we could find that Voc decreased
with decreasing Ni .
The way to study the efficiencies with different ratios
of NA /ND was similar as above. Accordingly, we could
obtain the best efficiency with various doping concentrations
and different ratios of NA /ND . As was shown in figure 4,
the optimum efficiency was attained when NA and ND were
both 5 × 1017 cm−3 .
3.3. Optimum thickness of the front layer
−3
With 5 × 10 cm carrier concentrations and 400 nm total
17
thickness, the corresponding efficiency and Jsc of the solar
cell were calculated by changing the p-layer thickness from 50
to 300 nm. In relation to the collection efficiency, the p-layer
Simulation of In0.65 Ga0.35 N single-junction solar cell
Figure 5. Calculated efficiency η and Jsc for variations of the
p-layer thickness dp .
Figure 6. The collection efficiency (a) and photogeneration rate
(b) depended on the position in the solar cell.
thickness played a certain role in Jsc . By simulations, it was
found that the efficiency for variations of the p-layer thickness
had a peak value as well as Jsc (shown in figure 5).
On the one hand, when the p-layer thickness was
decreased, Jsc increased due to the enhancement of the
effective collection efficiency Fe resulting from the decreasing
distance between the surface and the space charge region.
Here, the effective collection efficiency Fe , which was the
product of the collection efficiency F and the photogeneration
rate G, could be attributed to Jsc directly. Generally, F in the
space charge region was close to 100% and much greater than
in the other region (shown in figure 6(a)), while G was likely
to attenuate exponentially with the transmission distance in the
material (shown in figure 6(b)). So Jsc was enhanced due to
increasing Fe when the space charge region approached the
ideal surface.
On the other hand, the collection efficiency of the
space charge region would be weakened as the region would
be too close to the surface if the surface recombination
was considered. And Jsc would decrease because of the
reduction in Fe .
Accordingly, as the p-layer thickness was increased, both
the efficiency and Jsc increased first and then decreased. The
curves in figure 5 show that the best efficiency was obtained
with about 130 nm p-layer thickness.
3.4. Optimum performance of an In0.65 Ga0.35 N SJ solar cell
Both with 5 × 1017 cm−3 carrier concentrations, the 130 nm
thick p-layer and the 270 nm thick n-layer, the optimum
performance of the In0.65 Ga0.35 N SJ solar cell is shown in
figure 7. The efficiency, Voc , Jsc and FF were 20.284%,
0.834 V, 29.613 mA cm−2 and 0.822, respectively.
7337
X Zhang et al
Figure 7. The J –V characteristic of the In0.65 Ga0.35 N SJ solar cell
with the optimum efficiency calculated.
4. Conclusion
The optimum performance of the In0.65 Ga0.35 N solar cell
is simulated by calculating the efficiencies with different
parameters of the structure, including the doping concentration
and the thickness of each layer. When the carrier
concentrations of the front and basic regions are 5×1017 cm−3 ,
the thickness of the p-layer and the n-layer are 130 nm and
270 nm, respectively, the optimum efficiency calculated is
20.284% (AM1.5G, 100 mW cm−2 , 0.32–1.32 µm), and the
simulation contributes to designing and fabricating InGaN
ultra-high efficiency solar cells.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Nature Sciences
Foundation of China (No 60576046, No 60606002),
the Knowledge Innovation Engineering of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences (No YYYJ-0701-02) and the State
7338
Key Development Program for Basic Research of China
(No:2002CB311903, No:2006CB604905, No:513270505).
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