Regular Article

Multiscale in modelling and validation for solar photovoltaics

¹ TU Wien, Institute of Sensor and Actuator Systems, Gusshausstr 27-29, 1040 Vienna, Austria
² Faculty of Physics, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria
³ Central Laboratory of Solar Energy and New Energy Sources, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
⁴ Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
⁵ Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
⁶ Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
⁷ Department of Engineering, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
⁸ Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland
⁹ Aalto University, Espoo, Finland
¹⁰ GeePs, UMR CNRS 8507, CentraleSupélec, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, France11 rue Joliot-Curie, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
¹¹ FOTON, INSA de Rennes, CNRS, UMR 6082, 35708 Rennes, France
¹² CNRS, UMR IPVF 9006,Ile-de-France Photovoltaic Institute, 91130 Palaiseau, France and CNRS, NextPV, U. Tokyo, Japan
¹³ IEK-5 Photovoltaik, Forschungszentrum Juelich, 52425 Jülich, Germany
¹⁴ ISC Konstanz e.V., Rudolf-Diesel-Straße 15, 78467 Konstanz, Germany
¹⁵ Technische Universität München, Karlstrasse 45, 80333 Munich, Germany
¹⁶ Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience (IMDEA Nanoscience), C/ Faraday 9, 28049 Madrid, Spain
¹⁷ NCSR Demokritos, Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Athens, Greece
¹⁸ Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Chania, Greece
¹⁹ Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL), Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), 71110 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
²⁰ Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
²¹ Obuda University, Budapest, Hungary
²² Tyndall National Institute, Cork, Ireland
²³ University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
²⁴ Technion Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Haifa, Israel
²⁵ Dead Sea and Arava Science Center, Hevel Eilot, Israel
²⁶ Dept. Electronics Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
²⁷ Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy
²⁸ Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania
²⁹ Boukje.com Consulting, Bleiswijk, Netherlands
³⁰ Center for Computational Energy Research, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands
³¹ Department of Physics / Centre for Materials Science and Nanotechnology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
³² Wrocław University of Science and Technology, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland
³³ University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
³⁴ Centre of Physics, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
³⁵ National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics, INOE-2000, Department of Optospintronics, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
³⁶ University Politehnica of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
³⁷ School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
³⁸ University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
³⁹ Trimo Group, Trebnje, Slovenia
⁴⁰ ZEL-EN d.o.o., Trebnje, Slovenia
⁴¹ Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
⁴² Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
⁴³ University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
⁴⁴ Nano Lund, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
⁴⁵ Adolphe Merkle Institute, Fribourg, Switzerland
⁴⁶ Center for Solar Energy Research and Applications (GUNAM), Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
⁴⁷ Gebze Technical University, Kocaeli, Turkey
⁴⁸ Bulent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey
⁴⁹ Joule Physics Laboratory, School of Computing, Science & Engineering, University of Salford, Manchester M5 4WT, UK
⁵⁰ Imperial College London, London, UK
⁵¹ University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
⁵² Silvaco Europe Ltd, St. Ives, UK
⁵³ Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK
⁵⁴ Ss Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, fYR Macedonia
⁵⁵ ZAMSTEC − Science, Technology and Engineering Consulting, Arnoldstein, Austria
⁵⁶ Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Europastrasse 4, 9524 Villach, Austria
⁵⁷ PV Research Laboratory, Institute of Materials Science and Technology (IMRE) − Faculty of Physics, University of Havana, La Habana 10400, Cuba
⁵⁸ nextnano GmbH, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
⁵⁹ Centre of Microelectronic Technologies, Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
⁶⁰ Aix Marseille University CNRS, CINaM, Marseille, France

^* e-mail: auf.der.maur@ing.uniroma2.it

Received: 25 March 2018
Received in final form: 13 July 2018
Accepted: 18 July 2018
Published online: 23 October 2018

Abstract

Photovoltaics is amongst the most important technologies for renewable energy sources, and plays a key role in the development of a society with a smaller environmental footprint. Key parameters for solar cells are their energy conversion efficiency, their operating lifetime, and the cost of the energy obtained from a photovoltaic system compared to other sources. The optimization of these aspects involves the exploitation of new materials and development of novel solar cell concepts and designs. Both theoretical modeling and characterization of such devices require a comprehensive view including all scales from the atomic to the macroscopic and industrial scale. The different length scales of the electronic and optical degrees of freedoms specifically lead to an intrinsic need for multiscale simulation, which is accentuated in many advanced photovoltaics concepts including nanostructured regions. Therefore, multiscale modeling has found particular interest in the photovoltaics community, as a tool to advance the field beyond its current limits. In this article, we review the field of multiscale techniques applied to photovoltaics, and we discuss opportunities and remaining challenges.