3-D simulation of interdigitated-back-contact silicon solar cells with Quokka including perimeter losses

Andreas Fell, Kean C. Fong, Keith R. McIntosh, Evan Franklin, Andrew W. Blakers

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    67 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    An interdigitated-back-contact (IBC) version of Quokka, a recently developed free and fast solar cell simulation program, is presented. It is capable of simulating IBC unit cells with a variety of interdigitated contact and diffusion patterns in both 2-D and 3-D. The program is evaluated by comparing simulated and experimental current-voltage (I-V) curves of high-efficiency IBC solar cells. The simulations include the perimeter effects of edges and busbars by simulating the inner unit cell in 3-D, and accounting for the edges and busbars by 2-D unit cell approximations. The simulation agrees well with the experiment under 1-sun conditions with different aperture areas. Furthermore, simulations of the inner unit cell are successfully validated against Sentaurus Device, for both the I-V curve and detailed free energy losses at maximum power point. The results evidence the validity of the quasi-neutral and conductive-boundary approximations employed by Quokka for fast simulation of IBC solar cells.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number6812118
    Pages (from-to)1040-1045
    Number of pages6
    JournalIEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
    Volume4
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jul 2014

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