Swarm-Optimized ZnO/CdS/CIGS/GaAs Solar Cell for Enhanced Efficiency and Thermal Resilience

Optimizing solar cells design is vital for boosting efficiency and cutting production costs, meeting the increasing demand for renewable energy solutions. Through meticulous adjustments in material compositions and device architectures, optimization enhances energy conversion efficiency, making solar power more competitive and adaptable across various applications. This paper presents the optimization and efficiency enhancement of a ZnO/CdS/CIGS solar cell with GaAs. The optimization process utilizes the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm with a step-by-step approach. Solar cells are designed using SCAPS-1D software, and optimization is performed using Python. The optimized ZnO/CdS/CIGS solar cell achieves an efficiency of 32.4%, which rises to 44.7% upon integrating a GaAs layer. Further efficiency gains are observed, reaching 53.2% through back contact optimization, providing a power density of 54 mW/cm2 . Optimization also notices a significant improvement in quantum efficiency. The cells are tested under concentrated solar irradiance (1000 to 10000 W/m2 ) and temperatures (300 K to 800 K). Results show that at 10000 W/m2 and 800 K, the ZnO/CdS/CIGS/GaAs cell requires 53.9% less material than the ZnO/CdS/CIGS cell. Thus, adding GaAs enhances efficiency and thermal resilience, making it ideal for concentrated photovoltaics.