Unlike current silicon-based photovoltaic technology, the development of last-generation thin-film solar cells has been marked by groundbreaking advancements in new materials and novel structures to increase performance and lower costs. However, physically building each new proposal to evaluate the device’s efficiency can involve unnecessary effort and time. Numerical simulation tools provide a solution by allowing researchers to predict and optimize solar cell performance without physical testing. This paper reviews thirteen of the main numerical simulation tools for thin-film solar cells, including SCAPS, AMPS, AFORS-HET, ASPIN3, GPVDM, SESAME, SILVACO, SENTAURUS, and ADEPT. This review evaluates each tool’s features, modeling methods, numerical approaches, and application contexts. The findings reveal notable differences in material modeling, numerical accuracy, cost, and accessibility among the tools. Each tool’s strengths and limitations in simulating thin-film solar cells are highlighted. This study emphasizes the necessity of selecting suitable simulation tools based on specific research requirements. It provides a comparative analysis to assist researchers in choosing the most effective software for optimizing thin-film solar cells, contributing to advancements in photovoltaic technology.

This work performs an analysis of the impact o reflected radiation of different tones of surfaces on the eléctrica characteristics of a photovoltaic (PV) cell and the irradianc values. We used a Kipp & Zonen model CMP pyranometer and a PV cell of 60 mW (80 x 80 mm) for the measurements. Experimentally we put the module on different colors take I-V curves, controlling the incident irradiance with halogen lamps that keep its supply voltage constant. We discuss the behavior of the maximum power point (MPP) and the incident irradiance.

A low-complexity Hall-based measurement system implementing a dark/illuminated differential estimator of the majority-carrier photoconductive response is assessed on n-type crystalline silicon wafers with contrasting doping concentrations. The setup combines a Van der Pauw configuration, permanent neodymium magnets, a characterized white LED source, and a source–measure unit to extract an apparent Hall-derived differential indicator—not a calibrated majority-carrier density—under dark and illuminated steady-state conditions. At $1.81\mathrm{mW}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$, the lightly doped wafer ($N_D\approx {10}^{14}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$) shows a resolved response ($\Delta {\sigma }_{n,H}=29.61\pm 3.406\mathrm{mS}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1}$), reported as mean ± sample standard deviation from 15 dark/light cycles. The heavily doped wafer ($N_D\approx {10}^{17}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$) gives a nominal below-threshold response ($\Delta {\sigma }_{n,H}=1.167\pm 0.140\mathrm{mS}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1}$) from the same cycling protocol; it should be interpreted only as an unresolved trend-level indication because it lies below the instrumental detection threshold. The contrast is qualitatively consistent with the expected doping dependence, but no quantitative performance ratio is claimed for the heavily doped wafer. A Macdonald–Cuevas comparison is used only as a qualitative physical-consistency benchmark. No independent QSSPC, SSPC, $\mu$-PCD, or carrier-resolved photo-Hall measurement was available for the same wafers; therefore, the system serves as a complementary low-cost screening tool for comparative trend analysis, not a replacement for calibrated photoconductance or photo-Hall techniques, and it does not constitute a new measurement principle.