The thermal and electrical characteristics of a photovoltaic cell are obtained according to the Newton heat transfer between photovoltaic cell and environment, and dependence of band-gap width. This research experimental results show that the temperature of the photovoltaic cell is higher than the ambient temperature, and it first decreases and then increases, which is linearly increasing with the radiation intensity. The short-circuit current increases with the increase of radiation intensity while the open-circuit voltage increases first and then decreases with the increase of radiation intensity. Maximum efficiency can be obtained by optimizing the output voltage of the photovoltaic cells and solar radiation intensity. A spectrum splitting photovoltaic-thermal coupled system is constructed to improve the utilization rate of solar energy by inputting part of the radiant energy under the AM 1.5G standard condition into the thermal collection system.