Parameter extraction using global particle swarm optimization approach and the influence of polymer processing temperature on the solar cell parameters

The accurate estimation of the photovoltaic parameters is fundamental to gain an insight of the physical processes occurring inside a photovoltaic device and thereby to optimize its design, fabrication processes, and quality. A simulative approach of accurately determining the device parameters is crucial for cell array and module simulation when applied in practical on-field applications. In this work, we have developed a global particle swarm optimization (GPSO) approach to estimate the different solar cell parameters viz., ideality factor (η), short circuit current (I_sc), open circuit voltage (V_oc), shunt resistant (R_sh), and series resistance (R_s) with wide a search range of over ±100 % for each model parameter. After validating the accurateness and global search power of the proposed approach with synthetic and noisy data, we applied the technique to the extract the PV parameters of ZnO/PCDTBT based hybrid solar cells (HSCs) prepared under different annealing conditions. Further, we examine the variation of extracted model parameters to unveil the physical processes occurring when different annealing temperatures are employed during the device fabrication and establish the role of improved charge transport in polymer films from independent FET measurements. The evolution of surface morphology, optical absorption, and chemical compositional behaviour of PCDTBT co-polymer films as a function of processing temperature has also been captured in the study and correlated with the findings from the PV parameters extracted using GPSO approach.