A Study Of The Performance Of Solar Cells For Indoor Autonomous Wireless Sensors

The performances of six solar cell technologies for indoor energy harvesting are assessed under a controlled light intensity of 77.40 mu W/cm(2). A comparison of the calculated efficiencies of crystalline (c-Si), polycrystalline (poly-Si), amorphous silicon (a-Si), perovskite, gallium arsenide (GaAs) and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) shows that both DSSC and GaAs solar cells exhibit an efficiency of similar to 28%, whereas the efficiencies of perovskite and a-Si solar cells are 20.4% and 15.59% respectively. Considering both performance and cost, DSSC is the best choice for indoor light energy harvesting. Due to its high power density of 22.0 mu W/cm(2), the DSSC requires an area of 15 cm(2) to charge a 3.4 mAh rechargeable battery from a nominal voltage of 2.8 to 3.0 V in 60 minutes.