Investigation of power loss and device efficiency using a three-dimensional finite element simulation on organic solar cell geometry

Hong Kun Lyu, Sung Ho Woo, Seonju Jeong, Kang Pil Kim, Jang Kyoo Shin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

To enhance the performance and understanding of organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs), we have investigated the influence of organic solar cell geometry on power loss and device efficiency using three-dimensional finite element (3-D FE) simulation. To investigate the influence of geometry on power loss, we have proposed a new simple finite element (FE) model of OPV structure. We have checked the characteristics of the voltage drop on the ITO electrode layer and found that this model is suitable for describing the basic operation of an OPV. We have also simulated various geometries using a 3-D FE simulation and discussed these simulations in the paper. The total power loss obtained from the 3-D FE simulation allows us to compute the power conversion efficiencies of the eight OPVs and compare the computations against measured results. Based on these results, we discuss how to minimize resistance losses in the ITO electrode layer of the OPVs and propose a simple method to estimate easily the power losses using an FE simulation. We expect that this work could contribute to enhancing OPV performance to a certain large-area and offer insights into the design.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)66-70
Number of pages5
JournalSolar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
Volume96
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2012

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the DGIST R&D Program of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea (11-EN-02).

Keywords

  • Finite element method
  • Organic photovoltaic
  • Power loss
  • Resistance loss

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