AIP Advances ARTICLE

Temperature impact on parameters

of In0.3Ga0.7As PV cell under laser
irradiation condition
Cite as: AIP Advances 9, 095053 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5118930
Submitted: 6 July 2019 • Accepted: 17 September 2019 •
Published Online: 26 September 2019
1 1,2 1,a) 1,b)
Guangji Li, Chengmin Wang, Jian Lu, and Hongchao Zhang

AFFILIATIONS
1
School of Science, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
2
College of Mechanical Engineering, HuaiAn Vocational College of Information Technology, Huaian 223003, China
a)
lj6805@njust.edu.cn
b)
hongchao@njust.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
The parameters of In0.3Ga0.7As PV cell applied in laser wireless power transmission (LWPT) system dependence on temperature was investi-
gated at a temperature range of 5-90○ C under 100mW/cm2 laser intensity with 1070nm wavelength. The pollination algorithm method was

16 April 2024 04:18:33

used to extract parameters, viz., photocurrent, series and shunt resistance, reverse saturation current, and ideality factor from the I-V curves
at each temperature point. The results show that the short circuit current decrease exponentially with temperature increasing, which is
obviously different from the condition with solar irradiation. As temperature increases, the conversion efficiency and the open circuit
○
voltage decreases linearly at the rate of 0.095%/ C and 1.89mV/ C, respectively. In addition, the dependence of series and shunt resistance,
ideality factor, and fill factor on temperature was also analyzed. This research gives us a new understanding of PV cells under laser
○
irradiation condition, also provides a direction for manufacturing the cells used in LWPT system.
© 2019 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5118930.,

The photovoltaic (PV) cell is the determinant factor of laser-
electrical conversion efficiency at the receiving end of laser wire-
less power transmission (LWPT) system,1–4 as well as one of the
main factors limiting the development of LWPT systems. There-
fore, the performance of PV cells used in LWPT has attracted wide
attention.1,3,5–8 However, in many cases, the performance of PV
cells may be influenced by the operating conditions, especially the
temperature.2,9–11 The performance of a PV cell is determined by
the parameters (viz., short circuit current Isc, open circuit volt-
age Voc, fill factor FF, and conversion efficiency η). Temperature
variation affects above parameters and, hence, the performance
of PV cells.11–13 In LWPT systems especially used in air vehicle,
however, loading the cooling system is not convenient and will
reduce the payload.10 So, the study of the parameters dependence
on temperature under laser irradiation condition can provide a
reference for manufacturer to produce temperature-insensitive PV
cells.
Much literature about the parameters dependence on temper-
ature under solar irradiation condition has been published. 14–16 To
the best of our knowledge, however, there is no report has been
pub- lished concerning the condition with laser irradiation. In this
study, we investigated the temperature dependence of the
performance and cell parameters of In0.3Ga0.7As PV cell under
1070nm fiber laser irra- diation condition. As Mason10 has reported
that the fiber laser and the custom-made InGaAs PV cells are the
most promising chooses in LWPT system. The results in this paper
are quite different from the condition with solar irradiation. It offers
a reference for the pro- duction of PV cells used in LWPT, and can
predict the performance of PV cells under different temperatures.
Parameters for the performance evaluation of a PV cell are
extracted from the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. Among the
mathematical models available to describe these I-V curves, 17,18 the
most widely used is the single-diode model, due to its simplicity
and accurate results.19,20 The equation describing this model can be

AIP Advances 9, 095053 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5118930 9, 095053-1

© Author(s) 2019
 AIP Advances ARTICLE

written as:17
q(V + IRs) V + IRs
I = Iph − I0{exp[ ] − 1} − . (1)
nkT Rsh

where, I and V are the current and voltage of the module terminal,
Rs and Rsh are the series and shunt resistance, n is the diode ideality
factor, Iph and I0 are the photocurrent and reverse saturation cur-
rent, q, k and T are the elementary charge, Boltzmann constant, and
temperature, respectively. In our previous work, we validated the
applicability and accuracy of the pollination algorithm method to
extract parameters of PV cells under laser irradiation condition, 21,22
and we use the same method in this paper.
The PV cell used in this experiment was a single-junction
In0.3Ga0.7As, the same with our previous work.21 The PV cell was
mounted on a thermostat within 0.2 C. The illuminated I-V char-
±
acteristics were obtained by a digital source meter (Keithley model
2450) at temperature varying from 5○C to 90 C, and used to extract
the diode parameters (i.e. Iph, I0, n, Rs, and Rsh) of PV cell by the FIG. 2. Variation of open circuit voltage and short circuit current with temperature (the
○ formula is a linear fitting function of the open circuit voltage).
pollination algorithm method. For all measurements presented in
this work, the irradiation intensity of the laser was 100mW/cm 2.
Finally, the diode parameters obtained by the algorithm were used
to calculate the I-V curves by the Newton method. the open circuit voltage of a PV cell, and it decreases with increas-
Ten groups of I-V curves of the PV cell measured at various ing temperature.12,14,17 Therefore, the open circuit voltage exhibits a
values of temperature (5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and○ 90 C) strong dependence on temperature.
are shown in Fig. 1. The symbols and lines in the inset are the The short circuit current approximates exponential decline in
experi- mental and calculated results, respectively. (The a small range with the increase of temperature. In the range of 5-
○
temperature value of 30 C is chosen only as an example.) It is 90○C, the relative change of the short circuit current is 2.7%. This
result is totally different from the condition with solar irradiation.

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obvious that the cal- culated curves match fairly well with the
experimental results. The objective function (root-mean-square
error, RMSE) of all calculated curves in the pollination algorithm is
× with increasing temperature and more photons with lower energy
less than 1.23 10 4.
The behaviors of open circuit voltage and short circuit cur-
rent with increasing temperature, including the best fit are shown
in Fig. 2. As we can see, the value of Voc decreases linearly with
the increase of T, with a changing rate (dVoc/dT) of 1.89mV/ ○C.
It is different from that under solar irradiation, due to the temper-
ature coefficient of bandgap is different for different materials. 23,24
In general, the bandgap of a semiconductor determines the value of
Under solar irradiation condition, the short circuit current shows a
slight increase with temperature,14,16,25 for that the bandgap reduces
can generate carries. While in our experiment, there is no photons
with lower energy to be absorbed. At high temperature, the
radiative emission increases, so as the recombination rate, this is
attribute to the augmentation of the equilibrium carrier
concentration.26 Due to the above reasons, the short circuit current
decreases with increasing temperature, and, as we know, this is not
mentioned in the previous literature.
The temperature dependence of the conversion efficiency and
the fill factor are shown in Fig. 3. With temperature increasing, the
efficiency drops linearly with a rate of 0.095%/○ C, and the decreasing
rate of the fill factor rises slightly. The efficiency of the PV cell can be
expressed as
IscVocFF
η . (2)
= P
laser

where Plaser is laser intensity. Therefore the decrease in η with tem-

perature is due to the decrease of Voc, Isc, and FF with increasing
temperature.
The changing trend of the photocurrent of the PV cell with
tem- perature is almost the same with the short circuit current,
so the plot of Iph is not given. Other parameters dependence on
temper- ature are shown in Figs. 4 and 5. It can be noted that the
series and shunt resistance decrease with temperature, and the
decreasing rate of series resistance reduces obviously. The value of
reverse saturation current increases exponentially with temperature,
FIG. 1. I-V curves at various temperature under illumination intensity of and the ideality factor remains almost constant.
100mW/cm2. The inset shows the experimental (symbols) and calculated (lines) Series resistance is a parasitic, power consuming parameter. It
I-V curves at 30○C.
reduces the maximum achievable output power, and hence softens

AIP Advances 9, 095053 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5118930 9, 095053-2

© Author(s) 2019
 AIP Advances
FIG. 3. Variation of efficiency and fill factor with temperature.
the I-V characteristics of a PV cell, which means decay in the fill
fac- tor.17,27 We all know that series resistance accounts for the
ohmic losses due to the sum of contact resistance to the front and
back, resistance of the bulk and the sheet resistance of the active
layer. With temperature increasing, the resistance of the latter two
factors decreases. So the change of the trend is first exponentially
and then linearly,15 as shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, the reduction rate
of series resistance drops with the increase of temperature.
Shunt resistance represents the current leakage of a PV cell,
and it is generally associated with localized defect regions, which
have a larger concentration of traps.17,28 These traps act as sinks for
the majority carriers or the photo-generated minority carriers. As
the temperature rises, more traps are depopulated (by charge
carriers), resulting in an increase of the shunt current, hence, the
decrease of 14,29
Rsh.
The ideality factor reflects the carrier recombination in the
quasi-neutral base and space charge dominated diode junction, 30
generally varying from 1 to 2, and is also affected by the PV cell
fab- rication process.17,19 The decrease of the surface recombination
and
FIG. 4. Variation of series and shunt resistance with temperature.
AIP Advances 9, 095053 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5118930
© Author(s) 2019
ARTICLE
FIG. 5. Variation of reverse saturation current and ideality factor with temperature.
the resistance of the active layer leads to the decrease of the ideal-
ity factor with increasing temperature. While the increase of carrier
recombination in the bulk promotes the increase of the ideality fac-
tor with increasing temperature.17,21,30,31 The ideality factor remains
almost constant attribute to the above reasons.
The value of reverse saturation current increases exponentially
16 April 2024 04:18:33
with temperature, as shown in Fig. 5. It is the most affected param-
eter with a mean exponential increase of 7862.9%. The reverse
satu- ration current corresponds to recombination in neutral
regions, and increases with temperature because of the increase in
the leakage or recombination carries.12,14,26 Therefore the increase of
reverse satu- ration current with increasing temperature leads to the
decrease of shunt resistance and hence the decline of open circuit
voltage.
In summary, we chose the most suitable type of laser (fiber
laser) and a better option of PV cell (In0.3Ga0.7As) used in LWPT
to investigate the dependence of performance parameters and diode
parameters on temperature. The open circuit voltage, the short cir-
cuit current, and the fill factor all decrease with increasing temper-
ature. The exponential increase of reverse saturation current with
increasing temperature is the critical factor affecting the efficiency
of a PV cell. So, the performance of a PV cell deteriorate with the
increase of temperature under laser irradiation condition. Above all,
seriously controlling the operating temperature of the PV cell or
producing the temperature-insensitive PV cell by reducing the sen-
sitivity of the reverse saturation current is the significant way for
the LWPT system development.
This work was supported by the National Defense Basic Sci-
entific Research Program of China (No. JCKY2016606C002), the
Shanghai Aerospace Science and Technology Innovation Fund
(No. SAST20161113), and the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 11774176).
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