4. Conclusions
In conclusion, the temperature dependence of performance
on nanostructured thin-film solar cells based on
semiconductor material Si has been studied in the temperature
range of 300–400 K. We have investigated the
effect of temperature form two aspects: one is the temperature-dependent
optical and electrical parameters of
semiconductor material and the other is geometric parameters
of the structure affected by thermal expansion coef-
ficient. Photoelectric coupling model has been carried out
to investigate the influence of temperature on both the optical
and electrical properties of photonic crystal structured
silicon thin-film solar cells based on the NPillars and
NHoles by considering the temperature-dependent parameters
of semiconductor. Our results indicate that the tendency
of Jsc increases whereas Voc, and FF decreases with
the increase in temperature and this results in a decrease
in the power conversion efficiency with the increase of
temperature in both cases. It demonstrates that the slight
increase of optical absorption cannot compensate the dramatic
decrease of electrical loss in nanostructured thin-film
solar cells as the temperature increases. Therefore, the
influence of temperature on electrical properties is larger
than that on optical properties. As a result, the power
conversion efficiency decreases with the increase in temperature.
In addition, the effect of thermal expansion coef-
ficient affecting the geometric parameters of the
nanostructure has been investigated as well and the results
show that this effect is almost negligible on the performance
of nanostructured thin-film solar cells in the
temperature range of our investigation. Our work makes
it clear that how the temperature affects the performance
of nanostructured silicon thin-film solar cells by considering
the temperature-dependent variations of intrinsic characteristics
of semiconductor material and structures of the
cells.
Acknowledgment
We are grateful to the financial support from the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
No. 51336003)