Journal of Applied Science and Engineering

Published by Tamkang University Press

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Electrical Engineering

Md. Mahabub Alam Moon1, Sayed Rezwanul Islam Biplab1, Md. Hasan Ali1, Md. Ferdous Rahman1, Md. Sohel Rana1, and Abdul Kuddus2,3This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

1Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur, Rangpur 5400, Bangladesh
2Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Saitama 338-8570, Japan
3Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO), Ritsumeikan University, Shiga 525-8577, Japan

 

Received: November 18, 2022
Accepted: December 12, 2022
Publication Date: May 2, 2023

 Copyright The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.


Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.202312_26(12).0012  


The photovoltaic performance of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS)-based solar cells with Cd-free single buffer layers and a barium disulfide (BaSi2) back-surface field (BSF) has been studied through a numerical approach using a one-dimensional solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS-1D). The efficacy of the buffer layer of cadmium sulfide (CdS) via FTO/CdS/CIGS/BaSi2/Mo heterostructure has been studied first and thereafter toxic CdS is replaced by various non-toxic buffers; zinc selenide (ZnSe), indium-doped zinc sulfide (ZnS:In), and indium sulfide (In2S3). Comprehensive research has been done on the effects of buffer layer thickness, gallium (Ga) concentration in CIGS absorber, BaSi2 BSF doping density, various back contact metals, and cell operating temperature. The highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the CIGS-based solar cell with the CdS buffer layer is 26.24 percent, while solar cells with Zn-based buffers made of ZnS:In or ZnSe boost PCE by 17.68 percent and 17.56 percent, respectively. This study demonstrates the enormous potential of Zn-based ZnS:In and ZnSe buffers for the experimental fabrication of high-efficiency thin-film solar cells with the following structure: FTO/buffer/CIGS/BaSi2/Mo. 


Keywords: Zn-based buffer; BaSi2 BSF; CIGS; SCAPS-1D; Thin film solar cell.


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