I am trying to design and build a MPPT charger to charge a battery from a solar cell. From what I understand, an MPPT controller is basically a buck converter where the output voltage is optimized such that the current being drawn from a solar cell is I_mp, which will cause the voltage to be at V_mp.

Ideally, the current should be drawn constantly at I_mp to maximize the power, but during the off stage of a buck converter, no current is being drawn from the solar cell when it could have been producing power. Is this really the case, and is there a way to store/use that power during the on stage? Would adding an inductor and capacitor (L2 and C2 as shown below) to the input of the buck converter effectively store the energy from the off stage of the buck converter such that it will be used during the on stage?