Organic and a-Si Solar Cells for Energy Harvesting

In the last decades, lots of research have been performed with the purpose of obtaining solar cells with improved properties, and for extending their use in energy harvesting (EH) applications. In this paper, we designed and simulated two different solar cells, one based on organic materials and the other on amorphous silicon (a-Si), each in two different light intensity conditions (corresponding to outdoor and indoor functioning, respectively). We compared their performance in terms of the main characteristics and parameters and concluded that the organic solar cells have better results than the a-Si ones and have promising perspectives for being used in EH applications, in low light or indoor situations. As compared to other literature research, our paper proposes a careful choice of materials and parameters, for the PEDOT:PSS-based organic solar cell, to improve its performance; moreover, the use of the AFORS-HET software enabled us to perform a detailed comparative analysis of two different structures of solar cells, at two different illumination levels (to estimate the behaviour both in outdoor and indoor conditions), that could be followed by an experimental validation and testing of a real structure.