Faculty Lee Kong Chian Faculty of Engineering and Science

Department: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

(D3E)
Unit Code and Name UEEA3343 Solar Cell Technology
Experiment No.: Experiment 2

Title of Experiment: Experiment 2 : Characterization study of solar cells

Laboratory Room No. and Name: KB601
Experiment Duration (hour): Three (3) hours per lab session

Number of Student per Group Two (2) per group.

OBJECTIVES
To construct a simple setup for I-V curve measurement
To investigate IV curves of solar cell for different light intensities
To extract solar cell parameters from IV curves

Equipment and Materials

Quantity estimation
Item Description *Item category (e.g. per set/group of student)
Xenon Lamp (Solar simulator) with rotary
dimmer switch to control light intensity C 1 per group

Variable resistors (50 , 100 , 1 k, 5

W 1 per group
k)
Wires W 8 per group
Silicon polycrystalline module, thin film
module, Multimeters (mA Ammeter, E 2 per group
Voltmeter), Retort stand

*Item category
SP Sample or specimen
C Consumable
CH Chemical
W Labware, glassware, tool, and
components
E Equipment
S Software
 Rotary
Dimmer

Xenon Lamp with reflector

25 cm
AC power Photovoltaic Module
supply

Fig. 1

Xenon
Lamp

Fig.
2
Background Theory

Fill factor (FF) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) can be calculated using
the following formula
J maxVmax
FF (1)
J scVoc

FF J scVoc
PCE (2)
Pin / A
where Voc is the open circuit voltage; Imax and Vmax are the current and voltage for the
maximum power output respectively; Pin/A is the incident light intensity in which Pin is
power of incident light and A is corresponding area .
The generalized Shockley equation describes the relationship between the current
density (J) versus voltage (V) characteristic of organic solar cells are well established
formula [5], [6],[7]:

Rp e(V JRs V
J J s exp 1 J ph (V )
Rs R p nkT
(3)
R p

where Rp is the parallel resistance, Rs is the series resistance, Js is the saturation current
density, e is the fundamental charge, n is the diode ideality factor, Jph(V) is the voltage
dependent photocurrent density.
For solar cells with minimal leakage current (Rp >> Rs), eqn. (3) can be simplified
to
e(V JRs
J J s exp 1 J ph (V ) (4)
nkT
The first term is the thermally generated current dominated by recombination at the
donor/acceptor interface, and the second term accounts for photo-generated current.
For open circuit conditions (J = 0, V=Voc), the rate of carrier recombination equals
the rate of optical carrier generation. Assuming open circuit conditions, a short circuit
current of Jsc=Jph(0) >> Js, and a low series resistance, eqn. (4) can be further solved to
the following form:

nkT J sc
Voc ln (5)
e s
J
From eqn. (5), we can obtain the following equation provided that we can obtain the
value of (Jsc1, Voc1) from the Voc versus Jsc curve:

nkT J sc nkT J sc1

Voc Voc1 ln ln (6)
e s
J e s
J

lnJ sc Voc1 lnJ sc1
nkT nkT
Voc (7)
e e

Experimental Procedures

1. Set the first multi-meter to mA for it to function as ammeter and set the second
multi-meter to V for it to function as voltmeter.
2. Set up the Xenon lamp with reflector by connected the wires to the AC power
supply and rotary dimmer switch as shown in Fig. 1
3. Adjust the dimmer switch connected the Xenon lamp to maximum level so that
light intensity illuminated onto the photovoltaic are the most intense.
4. Let the light illuminated on the PV module for 10 minutes so that the thermal
equilibrium is reached where the reading of open-circuit voltage has achieved
reasonable stability.
5. Record the short circuit current as well as open circuit voltage before starting
second part of the experiment.
6. Connect the variable resistor and the multi-meters to the PV module as shown in
Fig. 2.
7. Set the scale on the variable resistor to zero or the lowest value possible.
8. Now increase the value of the variable resistor and record the corresponding
current and voltage reading.
9. Repeat the preceding step by fixing the voltmeter reading from 0.1 V to the
maximum possible voltage in steps of about 0.1 V and record its corresponding
current reading.
10. After the completion of recording voltage and equivalent current, repeat the step 7
to step 9 for different intensity of light by adjusting the rotary dimmer switch.
11. Repeat the step 10 so that you can plot six sets of current versus voltage (I-V)
curves for six different intensities of light.
 12. Plot the all the six sets of I-V curves with different light intensity using Microsoft
excel.
13. For each of the six I-V curves, identify the value of short-circuit current (Isc),
open-circuit voltage (Voc), maximum operating current (Imax) and maximum
operating voltage (Vmax). Then calculate fill factor, FF = (Imax Vmax)/(Isc Voc)
14. Plot Voc versus Isc, and FF versus Isc using Microsoft excel.
15. In the Microsoft excel platform, perform curve fitting to the data in both Voc
versus Isc, and FF versus Isc curves by choosing logarithm function.

Result and analysis

1. Identify and mark on each plot, the points of maximum power output (Imax,Vmax).
2. Determine the optimized load to obtain maximum power transfer from the solar
cell to the load
3. Determine the fill factor for the module.
4. Determine ideality factor of solar cell using equation (7)