Greatly Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells via Metal Oxide.

Lingling Zhou,Lufei Xiao,Jie Liu,Hai Yang,Xibin Yu

doi:10.3390/nano8070505

Abstract

Band-gap alignment engineering has now been extensively studied due to its high potential for application. Here we demonstrate a simple route to synthesize two metal oxide layers and align them together according to their bandgaps on the surface of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. The metal oxide layers not only extend absorption spectrum to generate extra carriers but also more efficiently separate electron–hole pairs. As a consequence, the photovoltaic performance of SnO2/CdO/Si double-layer solar cell (DLSC) is highly improved compared to the controlled Si solar cell, CdO/Si and SnO2/Si single-layer solar cells (SLSCs). Via alignment engineering, the SnO2/CdO/Si DLSC produces a short circuit photocurrent (Jsc) of 38.20 mA/cm2, an open circuit photovoltage (Voc) of 0.575 V and a fill factor (FF) of 68.7%, a conversion efficiency (η) of 15.09% under AM1.5 illumination.

Highlights

Solar cells have been developing for more than five decades
The update conversion efficiency of GaInP/GaAs solar cells have broken 40% [1,2,3,4]. These high efficiency solar cells still have many disadvantages, such as stability issues and high cost, so that they can hardly be put into large-scale production
Silicon nanowires [7,8,9], ZnO nanowires [10], and CuO nanoleaves [11] are some of those extraordinary attempts

Summary

Introduction

Solar cells have been developing for more than five decades. From the very first generation solar cell to the latest one, the conversion efficiency of the solar cell itself has been largely improved. The update conversion efficiency of GaInP/GaAs solar cells have broken 40% [1,2,3,4]. These high efficiency solar cells still have many disadvantages, such as stability issues and high cost, so that they can hardly be put into large-scale production. At this point, with the combination of high purity, natural abundance, a matching insulator, and maturity of production [5,6], crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells show their unique advantageous properties. It has opened up new opportunities to achieve higher energy conversion efficiency at lower fabrication costs

Methods

Results

Conclusion