Computational Design of Colourful and Flexible Photonic-enhanced Solar Cells

• Autor(a) principal: Fialho, Miguel Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/153470
• topic: Photonics; Solar Cells; Perovskite; Structural Colour; BIPV; Thin-film; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Engenharia dos Materiais

The need for coloured solar cells is particularly relevant to the adoption of photovoltaic devices in building-integrated photovoltaics. This thesis describes the process by which perovskite-based thin-film (MAPbI3) solar cells (PSCs) were optimised to tune colour without compromising flexibility whilst increasing short-circuit current density (JSC). Solar cells containing antireflective front coatings of planar, nanopillar and cross-grating geometries are simulated in a three-dimensional space by the Finite Differences in Time Domain (FDTD) numerical method using Ansys Lumerical software. The main outcomes of the numerical simulations are the optical photocurrent and the overall reflection, which is converted into colour using the CIE 1931 Colour-matching functions for standardised observers. Two Figures of Merit were developed, based on the optical photocurrent and the Euclidian distance between the simulated and desired colour. The best of the two FoMs is maximized via particle swarm optimization algorithm, by variation of geometrical properties of the front coverings and intrinsic ITO and Spiro-OMeTAD layer thicknesses. Through analytical elimination of redundant variables and successive restrictions in parameter ranges, the optimal geometrical parameters for flexible thin-film photonically-enhanced PSCs coloured red, green, or pink are obtained for increases in JSC upwards of 10.7%, and a versatile methodology is posited for future optimizations.