Int. J. Adv. Sci. Eng. Vol.6 No.S1 42-46 (2019) 42 E-ISSN: 2349 5359; P-ISSN: 2454-9967 Chakraborty et al., Open Access/Spectrum 2019/Special Issue www.mahendrapublications.com Experimental Prediction of Effect of Thickness of Active Layer of Photovoltaic Device on a series of Electrical Parameters using GPVDM Software K. Chakraborty 1 *, S. Malakar 2 , D. K. Mandal 3 , R. Mondal 4 , A. K. Maiti 5 1 Department of Basic and Applied Science (Physics), Brainware University, Kolkata-700124,, West Bengal, India 2 Department of Electrical Engineering, CITM, Hooghly-712134, West Bengal India 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, India 4 Department of Energy Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata-700032, West Bengal, India 5 Department of Basic and Applied Science (Physics), Brainware University, Kolkata-700124,, West Bengal, India 1. INTRODUCTION Modern civilization is facing on a strong challenge to fight with the luck of conventional energy sources. Moreover, greenhouse gas emission, burning of fossil fuel, impact of global warming and related issues for which human civilization is responsible enough, are now threating seriously the Earth life. So researchers are now thinking about some alternative way to get rid of such problem. Therefore, renewable energy sources become very important day by day which leads to the concept of organic solar cell. There are several advantages of using organic solar cell over inorganic one because of their huge availability, low cost maintenance, easy sample preparation technique flexibility etc [1-5]. But still the devices are facing some limitation about their rapid usage and development. Since organic substances are amorphous and disordered in nature, this disordered nature inherently generates trapping problem at the bulk region of the device. Conducting charges are getting trapped at the trap center of the device during conduction. Lowering of conductivity enhances the effect of high resistance. High resistance is a very important parameter which has direct influence on fill factor as well as on efficiency. Due to the high value of series resistance efficiency of organic solar cells is very low. Deschler et al [6]gives a very interesting result of their research that conductivity of the conjugated polymers in active regime can be enhanced by doping. Bulk Heterojunction (BHJ) formed by incorporation of a conjugate polymer & electron accepting molecules are said to be constitute an active layer that permits maximum absorption of incident light[7-9].That point of view leads researchers to a very interesting point of research to analyze the device structure of OPV. From above discussions power conservation efficiency should also be dependent on the width of active layer thickness. In the present work, J-V Characteristics of solar cell at several active layer thicknesses has been measured and change of device efficiency at different thickness value has been encountered by using simulating software GPVDM (General Purpose Photovoltaic device model). Dependence of other electrical parameters like open circuit voltage, short circuit current, maximum power at output and fill factors are also measured at those considered layer thickness value [10-12].The present work is fruitful to enrich the knowledge about the enhancement of solar cell device efficiency and further progressive attempt to improve the device related parameters. 2. BULK HETEROJUNCTION SOLAR CELL Bulk heterojunction solar cell structure has been depicted in Figure 1. PEDOT:PSS and P3HT:PCBM has been sandwiched between Front electrode ITO and back electrode Al. PEDOT:PSS works as buffer layer whereas P3HT:PCBM works as an active layer. Because of high transmittance in visible regime and capability ABSTRACT: Electrical simulation at different thickness of active layer of organic photovoltaic devices has been encountered by using GPVDM software. P3HT-PCBM composite material has been selected as active material whereas ITO, PEDOT:PSS and Al has been chosen as front and back electrodes respectively. A comparative study of different electrical parameters has been estimated at different layer thickness. It is found that electrical parameters are strongly affected by active layer width. Current conduction is also influenced strongly with thickness of active layer. KEYWORDS: Organic solar cell, thickness, GPVDM, efficiency, Bulk heterojunction https://doi.org/10.29294/IJASE.6.S1.2019.42-46 © 2019 Mahendrapublications.com, All rights reserved *Corresponding Author: kushalphys@gmail.com Received: 11.05.2019 Accepted: 18.06.2019 Published on: 20.07.2019