ARTICLE IN PRESS

Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 81 (2004) 269277

Exact analytical solutions of the parameters of

real solar cells using Lambert W -function
Amit Jain, Avinashi Kapoor*
Department of Electronic Science, University of Delhi, South Campus, New Delhi 110021, India
Received 11 August 2003; accepted 4 November 2003

Abstract
Exact closed-form solution based on Lambert W -function are presented to express the
transcendental currentvoltage characteristic containing parasitic power consuming parameters like series and shunt resistances. The W -function expressions are derived using Maple
software. Different parameters of solar cell are calculated using W -function method and
compared with experimental data of Charles et al. for two solar cells (blue and grey).
Percentage accuracy of W -function method is also calculated to prove the signicance of the
method.
r 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Lambert W -function; Currentvoltage characteristics; Solar cell

1. Introduction
Expressions where linear and exponential responses are combined appear in many
problems of physics and engineering. Some examples are currentvoltage relationships of solar cells, photo detectors and diodes used as circuit elements. It is always
preferable to express current as an explicit analytical function of the terminal voltage
and vice versa. Such exercise would be computationally advantageous in device
models that are to be used repeatedly in circuit simulator programs, in problems of
device parameter extraction, etc. Several attempts have been approached traditionally using iterative or analytical approximations [13], Lagranges method of
undetermined multipliers [4], approximation methods, least-squares numerical
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: avinashi [email protected] (A. Kapoor).
0927-0248/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2003.11.018

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270

techniques [5] to achieve the explicit solutions containing only common elementary
functions. A careful search of literature reveals that use of a function known as
Lambert W -function [6,7] commonly as W -function which is not frequently used
in electronics problem is extremely important for solving such kind of problems.
Solutions based on this function are exact and explicit and are easily differentiable.
W -function originated from work of J.H. Lambert [8] on trinomial equation that he
published in 1758 and was discussed by Euler [9] in 1779. W -function is dened by
the solution of equation W expW x: Although rarely used, its properties are well
documented [1013] and several algorithms were published for calculating
W -function. Some recent work includes exact analytical solution based on W function for the case of a non-ideal diode model comprised of a single exponential
and a series parasitic resistance, bipolar transistor circuit analysis using W -function
[14], and photorefractive two-wave mixing [15].
To the best of our knowledge no analysis of solar cells using W -function is
available in literature. The currentvoltage relation of solar cell is transcendental in
nature, hence it is not possible to solve it for voltage in terms of current explicitly and
vice versa. This paper describes the use of W -function to nd the explicit solution for
the current and voltage and use them to extract different parameters of solar cells.
Comparisons are also made with the experimental data.

2. Theory
The single diode model assumes that the dark current can be described by a single
exponential dependence modied by the diode ideality factor n: The currentvoltage
relationship is given by



!
V iRs
V iRs
nVth
i Iph 
1 ;
1
 Io e
Rsh
where i and V are terminal current and voltage in amperes and volts respectively, Io
the junction reverse current (A), n the junction ideality factor and Vth the thermal
voltage (kT/q), and Rs and Rsh are series and shunt resistance, respectively. Eq. (1) is
transcendental in nature hence it is not possible to solve it for V in terms of i and vice
versa. However, explicit solution for current and voltage can be expressed using W function as follows:
0


1
Rsh Rs Iph Rs Io V

nVth Rs Rsh
B
LambertW @Rs Io Rsh e nVth Rs Rsh

V

Rs Rsh
Rsh Io Iph

;
Rs Rsh

i 

C
AnVth

Rs
2

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A. Jain, A. Kapoor / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 81 (2004) 269277

0
BIo Rsh e
V  iRs  iRsh Iph Rsh  nVth LambertW @

Rsh iIph Io
nVth

nVth

Io Rsh :

271

1
C
A
3

The arguments of the W -function in Eqs. (2) and (3) only contains corresponding
variable and the models parameters.
To obtain short-circuit current, Isc ; substitute V 0 in Eq. (2), explicit solution of
Isc using W -function is
0


1
Rsh Rs Iph Rs Io

nVth Rs Rsh
B
LambertW @Rs Io Rsh enVth Rs Rsh

Isc 

C
AnVth

Rs

Rsh Iph Io
:
Rs Rsh

Similarly explicit solution of open circuit voltage Voc in terms of W -function can be
evaluated by substituting i 0 in Eq. (3)


1
0
Voc

Rsh Iph Io


nV

BIo Rsh e
Iph Rsh  nVth LambertW @

th

nVth

C
A Io Rsh :

The dynamic resistance Rso and Rsho at the open-circuit voltage and short-circuit
current are given by
Rso @V =@iV Voc ;
0

B
LambertW @Io Rsh e

Rsh Iph Io

nVth
nVth

Rso : Rs Rsh 

1

C
ARsh

Rsh Iph Io

nVth

B
1 LambertW @Io Rsh e

nVth

 1;

C
A

Rsho @V =@iiIsc ;

0

B
LambertW @Io Rsh e
Rsho : Rs Rsh 

Rsh Isc Iph Io

nVth

0
B
1 LambertW @Io Rsh e

nVth

1
C
ARsh

Rsh Isc Iph Io

nVth

nVth

 1:

C
A

Rso and Rsho are also the slopes of IV curve at open- and short-circuit conditions.

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A. Jain, A. Kapoor / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 81 (2004) 269277

The output power is given by

P Vi:
Power can be expressed explicitly in terms of i and V as follows:
0

Rsh iIph Io
nVth

B
BIo Rsh e
Pi i@iRs  iRsh Iph Rsh  nVth LambertW @

nVth

1
C
A

Io Rsh ;

8

Rsh Rs Iph Rs Io V
nVth Rsh Rs

BRs Io Rsh e
B
PV V @VRs  LambertW @
nVth Rsh Rs
0

Rsh Rs Iph Rs Io V
nVth Rsh Rs

BRs Io Rsh e
 LambertW @
nVth Rsh Rs

1
C
AnVth Rsh

1
C
A


 nVth Rs Rs Iph Rsh Rs Io Rsh =Rs Rsh Rs :

To obtain maximum-power output condition we have to optimize Pi and PV as

follows:
Differentiate Pi and PV w.r.t. i and V ; respectively, and then solve them to
obtain optimum current, im and optimum voltage, Vm ; corresponding to maximum
power output condition:
@P=@iiim

BIo Rsh e
 iRs  iRsh Iph Rsh  nVth LambertW @
Io Rsh
0

Rsh iIph Io

nV

Rsh iIph Io
nVth

th

nVth
1

1
C
A

C
B
BIo Rsh e
C
B
LambertW @
ARsh C
C
B
nV
th
C
B
B


 1C
iBRs  Rsh
C;
0
Rsh iIph Io
C
B
C
B
nVth
B
BIo Rsh e
CC
@
1 LambertW @
AA
nVth

10

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 @P=@V V Vm

Rsh Iph Rs Io Rs V
nVth Rs Rsh

B
LambertW @Rs Io Rsh e nVth Rs Rsh


V

Rs Rsh

273

1
C
AnVth

Rs

B
B
B
B
Rsh Iph Io
1

VB
B Rs Rsh
Rs Rsh
B
B
@
0

Rsh Iph Rs Io Rs V
nVth Rs Rsh

B
LambertW @Rs Io Rsh e nVth Rs Rsh

1

C
ARsh

C
C
C
C
C:
0
0
1
1




C
Rsh Iph Rs Io Rs V
C
nVth Rs Rsh
C
B
BRs Io Rsh e
CC
R

R
R
@1 LambertW @
A
A
s
sh
sA
nVth Rs Rsh

11

Solving the above equations we can obtain im and Vm and hence maximum output
power Pm Vm im :
Fill factor (FF), which is a measure of squareness of IV curve, is found to be
FF Pm =Voc Isc :

Fig. 1. Currentvoltage characteristics of solar cell for different values of ideality factors.

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A. Jain, A. Kapoor / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 81 (2004) 269277

Fig. 2. Currentvoltage characteristics of solar cell for different values of shunt resistance.

Fig. 3. Currentvoltage characteristics of solar cell for different values of series resistance.

The two ratios Vm =Voc and Im =Isc and the FF all improve with increasing value of
Voc and decreasing value of n the ideality factor. The nearer the value of n is to unity,
the better the device performance is, other parameters being equal (Fig. 1). FF
degrades with increasing value of Rs and increases with increasing value of Rsh
(Figs. 2 and 3).

3. Calculations
We evaluated different parameters for two solar cells (namely blue solar cell and
grey solar cells) using data of Phang et al. [16] and Charles et al. [17] (Table 1) and

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275

Table 1
Comparison between experimental and theoretical data and relative accuracy
Parameters Experimental data of Charles et al.

Voc (V)
Isc (A)
Rso O
Rsho O
Vm V
Im A
T K

Data using W -function

Accuracy (%)

Blue solar
cell

Grey solar
cell

Blue solar
cell

Grey solar
cell

Blue solar Grey solar

cell
cell

0.536
0.1023
0.45
1000
0.437
0.0925
300

0.524
0.561
0.162
25.9
0.390
0.481
307

0.53465
0.10229
0.44298
997.4018
0.43191
0.093396

0.52093
0.55931
0.16121
25.896
0.38473
0.48335

0.251
0.009
1.56
0.259
1.16
0.968

0.585
0.301
0.487
0.015
1.35
0.488

Fig. 4. Fill factor Vs Series Resistance.

equations derived above. Calculated parameters using W functions are compared

with experimental data by Charles et al. (Table 1). Relative accuracy has also been
calculated (Table 1).

4. Results and discussion

The approach for extracting solar cell parameters using W -function is made rst
time.
Various other methods suggested earlier have either larger computational time or
are less accurate due to various approximations. Exact explicit analytical solution for
current, voltage, short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, output power are

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A. Jain, A. Kapoor / Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells 81 (2004) 269277

Fig. 5. Fill factor Vs Shunt Resistance.

Fig. 6. Currentvoltage characteristics of blue and grey solar cell, curve 1 (solid line) for blue solar cell,
curve 2 (dotted line) for grey solar cell.

presented. For both solar cells calculated parameters using W -function are in better
agreement with experimental data by Charles et al. Accuracy is more as no
approximations are made for solving the equations. Various curves of FF versus Rs
(Fig. 4), FF versus Rsh (Fig. 5) are plotted. IV curves for various Rs and Rsh (Figs. 2
and 3) are also plotted. It was found that for Rs > 1 O and Rsh o10 O IV plot is a
triangle which is worst case for solar cell. Current-voltage characteristics of blue and
grey solar cell for an experimental case are shown in Fig. 6.

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277

It can be concluded that W -function-type solutions are attractive alternatives to

extract and study solar cell parameters.

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