Thermal and electrical performance analysis of silicon vertical multi-junction solar cell under non-uniform illumination

•The thermal and electrical performance of the silicon VMJ cell was calculated.•Mean temperature increased with non-uniform illumination degree for 500 area ratio.•Mean temperature varied few with non-uniform illumination degree for 2500 area ratio.•Efficiency varied few with non-uniform illumination degree for 500 area ratio.•Efficiency increased with non-uniform illumination degree for 2500 area ratio.

The silicon vertical multi-junction (VMJ) solar cell has low costs and low series resistance, thus it has a good potential in concentration photovoltaics. However, there were few discussions about the thermal and electrical performance of silicon VMJ cell under non-uniform illumination. In this work, the thermal performance of silicon VMJ cell under 1D non-uniform illumination of 500 suns was calculated using finite element method first, and then the electrical performance of the cell was calculated using SPICE software based on the thermal simulation results. It was found that the mean temperature of the cell increased with the degree of non-uniform illumination when the area ratio of the sink to the cell was 500X, and the mean temperature changed few when the area ratio was 2500X. The efficiency of the cell did not decrease with the increase of the degree of non-uniform illumination when the area ratio was 500X, and the efficiency increased with the degree of non-uniform illumination when the area ratio was 2500X. Thus, the silicon VMJ cell had better performance than silicon planar junction cell under 1D non-uniform illumination of 500 suns.