Citation:
Abstract:
III-V-based materials are widely used for multi-junction solar cell applications due to their large band gap, allowing them to absorb a significant amount of light and increase the output power. Among the III-V materials, AlGaAs is a promising candidate for the top cell due to its tunable band gap. However, the growth of AlGaAs often leads to the formation of DX-centers, resulting in low material quality and limiting the reported efficiencies of AlGaAs cells to mostly below 18.7%. Research in this field has primarily focused on single and multi-variable parameter sweep methods to optimize the conversion efficiency of solar cells. While effective, these techniques can be time-consuming, especially when only the final result matters and their accuracy diminishes as the number of layers in the cell increases. To address these challenges, we proposed a metaheuristic method based on Real Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) to optimize the solar cell. By hybridizing MATLAB and Atlas SILVACO, we developed an efficient code. The effectiveness of the utilized modeling framework is evaluated by comparing its predictions to experimental results, revealing a strong correspondence between the two. The obtained results were compared to those achieved using conventional parameter sweep methods. Our optimized solar cell achieved an efficiency of 26.08% under the AM1.5 spectrum. The findings demonstrate that a multi-dimensional optimization using the RCGA approach, combined with the Atlas SILVACO simulator, can be effectively employed to optimize semiconductor devices, offering a more robust alternative to existing methods.