A free and fast three-dimensional/two-dimensional solar cell simulator featuring conductive boundary and quasi-neutrality approximations

Date

2013

Authors

Fell, Andreas

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Inc)

Abstract

Details of Quokka, which is a freely available fast 3-D solar cell simulation tool, are presented. Simplifications to the full set of charge carrier transport equations, i.e., quasi-neutrality and conductive boundaries, result in a model that is computationally inexpensive without a loss of generality. Details on the freely available finite volume implementation in MATLAB are given, which shows computation times on the order of seconds to minutes for a full $I$-$V$ curve sweep on a conventional personal computer. As an application example, the validity of popular analytical models of partial rear contact cells is verified under varying conditions. Consequently, it is observed that significant errors can occur if these analytical models are used to derive local recombination properties from effective lifetime measurements of test structures.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: Application examples; Charge-carrier transport; Computation time; Conductive boundary; Effective-lifetime measurements; Finite volume; quasi-neutrality; Quokka; simulation; Solar cell simulation; Test structure; Analytical models; MATLAB; Models; Personal Conductive boundary; modeling; quasi-neutrality; Quokka; simulation; solar cell

Citation

Source

IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

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License Rights

Restricted until

2037-12-31