Performance analysis of thin film CIGS solar cell at different values of thickness, bandgap and temperature through numerical simulation

In this work, we present the performance analysis of the Cu(InGa)Se2 (CIGS) thin-film solar cell by exploring the physics of varying CIGS thickness, bandgap, and the device temperature. The thickness optimization of the CIGS layer is important as this lowers the large-scale manufacturing cost and eliminates the issues associated with the handling of bulky conventional solar cells. The chalcopyrite CIGS material bandgap varies from 1eV to 1.7 eV depending upon the value of 'x' in the formula CuIn1-xGaxSe2. The bandgap can be engineered by varying the gallium (Ga) and indium (In) composition in CuIn1-xGaxSe2. The structure is numerically simulated using the SCAPS-1D code. We investigate how the photovoltaic parameters of the solar cell such as V_oc, J_sc, FF, and η are affected by varying the thickness of the absorber layer ranging from 1m to 2μm and bandgap value from 1 eV to 1.7 eV. Further, we demonstrate how the performance of this chalcopyrite material based solar cell varies with the increase in the temperature ranging from 300- 360K. By detailed understanding, we anticipate that an efficient CIGS solar cell can be developed in the future.