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Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Modeling, Materials and Device Technology pp 117–146Cite as

Electrical Device Modeling

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Part of the book series: Electronic Materials: Science & Technology ((EMST,volume 5))

Abstract

The simulation of the electrical and optical behavior of semiconductor devices has been established as an essential tool for both the improvement of existing devices and for the development of new ones. There is no doubt that the role of device modeling will increase in the future. Device modeling involves the numerical solution of a set of equations, which form a mathematical model for device operation, together with models that describe the material properties. A number of sophisticated device program packages are already commercially available on the market such as Medici, 1997 from TMA company or Atlas from SILVACO company. These programs are mostly designed for modeling a broad range of crystalline semiconductor devices. At present they are continuously updated to offer possibilities to model also polysilicon and amorphous silicon based devices such as thin film transistors (TFTs) and solar cells. The advantage of these programs is that they are modular, so the users need to acquire only the minimum set of modules to meet their needs. A comprehensive set of two dimensional (2-D) device simulation tools and common libraries such as parser, grid generation algorithms, solvers and external interfaces are integrated in these programs. Still, the models that are used in these packages to describe material properties of amorphous silicon are relatively simple. Therefore, several groups have developed their own computer programs for modeling amorphous and microcrystalline silicon solar cells, in which more flexible and sophisticated models describing amorphous silicon electronic properties are implemented. Examples are: the model of Hack and Shur, 1985, the program AMPS developed at PennState University (McElheny et al., 1988), the ASPIN program from Ljubljana University (Smole and Furlan, 1992), and the ASA package developed at Delft University of Technology (Zeman et al., 1997).

Nature has that many parameters… —Stephen Fonash, April 15, 1998

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Debye Institute, Netherlands

    Ruud E. I. Schropp

  2. Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

    Miro Zeman

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  1. Ruud E. I. Schropp
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  2. Miro Zeman
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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Schropp, R.E.I., Zeman, M. (1998). Electrical Device Modeling. In: Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Modeling, Materials and Device Technology. Electronic Materials: Science & Technology, vol 5. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5631-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5631-2_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-8317-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-5631-2

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