Simulation of Solar Element Characteristics Based on Porous Silicon

Abstract

The article proposes a solar cell model based on heterostructures with a porous silicon buffer layer. Using the PC1D program, the light characteristics of the fabricated structure (open-circuit voltage VOC, short-circuit current JSC density, conversion efficiency $\eta$) were calculated, and the current-voltage characteristics were plotted. The results obtained show an increase in the photovoltaic TiO2/porous-Si/Si performance and CuO/porous-Si/Si solar cells. It has been found that solar cell efficiency of energetic conversion using a layer of porous silicon increases by ~10%, reaching 23.6%. The efficiency dependence of photo converters based on heterostructures with a porous silicon layer on the thickness of the porous layer is studied. It has been established that a change in the thickness of the porous layer does not significantly affect the short-circuit current. The value of the open-circuit voltage acquires a maximum value at a porous layer thickness of $0.6-0.7 \mu\mathrm{m}$. It can be seen from the analysis of the simulation results that the efficiency of a solar cell based on the CuO/porous-Si/Si heterostructure changes by 0.8% with a change in the thickness of the porous layer, while the efficiency for a solar cell based on the TiO2/porous-Si/Si heteroconversion changes by 0.4 %. The proposed heterostructures are promising for the inexpensive development, clean and durable devices with a noticeable efficiency converting light into electricity.