Improving Efficiency of Photovoltaic Cell Using Nanomaterials

Conventional solar cells are not economical and are recently too expensive to the manufacturers for extensive-scale electricity generation. Cost and efficiency is most vital factor in the accomplishment of any solar technology. In order to improve the conversion efficiency, the major research in third generation photovoltaic (PV) cells is directed toward retaining more sunlight using nanotechnology. Advancement in nanotechnology solar cell via quantum dots (QDs) could reduce the cost of PV cell and additionally enhance cell conversion efficiency. Silicon quantum dots (Si-QDs) are semiconductor nano crystals of nanometers dimension whose electron-holes are confined in all three spatial dimensions. Quantum dots have discrete electronic states. Quantum dots have capacity to change band gap with the adjustment in size of quantum dot. As the quantum dots size fluctuates over a wide range that demonstrates the variety of band gap so it will assimilate or discharge light. In this paper, the generic mathematical models of PV cell are adopted and then I-V and P-V characteristic curves are obtained from selected parameters using MATLAB software. The essential parameters are taken from datasheets. I-V and P-V characteristics curves are obtained for selected model. Silicon quantum dots have the tunable band gap that is added to conventional PV cell and obtain the I-V and P-V curves. After simulation, efficiency and power of Conventional PV cell to quantum dots based PV cell is compared. The property of quantum dots is used in extending the band gap of solar cells and increasing the maximum proportion of incident sunlight absorbed, hence improving efficiency.