Improving the efficiency of solar cells through novel materials and devices is critical to realize the full potential of solar energy to meet the growing worldwide energy demands. We present here a highly efficient radial p-n junction silicon solar cell using an asymmetric nanowire structure with a shorter bottom core diameter than at the top. A maximum short circuit current density of 27.5 mA/...

This paper presents the history of development heterojunction silicon solar cells from first studies amorphous silicon/crystalline junction to creation HJT with novel structure and contact grid designs. In addition explanation current advances in field research this type cells, purpose is show possible ways improve silicon-based for further improvement optical electrical parameters devices by u...

Most photovoltaic (solar) cells are made from crystalline silicon (c-Si), which has an indirect band gap. This gives rise to weak absorption of one-third of usable solar photons. Therefore, improved light trapping schemes are needed, particularly for c-Si thin film solar cells. Here, a photonic crystal-based light-trapping approach is analyzed and compared to previous approaches. For a solar ce...

This work evaluated the possibility of using silicon solar cells as load-carrying elements in composite sandwich structures. Such an ultra-light multifunctional structure is a new concept enabling weight, and thus energy, to be saved in high-tech applications such as solar cars, solar planes or satellites. Composite sandwich structures with a weight of 800 g/m were developed, based on one 140 l...

In this paper, we present the design and fabrication of hybrid dielectric-metallic back surface reflectors, for applications in thin film amorphous silicon solar cells. Standard multilayer distributed Bragg reflectors, require a large number of layers in order to achieve high reflectance characteristics. As it turns out, the addition of a metallic layer, to the base of such a multilayer mirror,...

Light trapping and photon management of silicon thin film solar cells can be improved by a separate optimization of the front and back contact textures. A separate optimization of the front and back contact textures is investigated by optical simulations taking realistic device geometries into consideration. The optical simulations are confirmed by experimentally realized 1 μm thick microcrysta...

A theoretical model, combining trapping/detrapping and recombination mechanisms, is formulated to explain the origin of random current fluctuations in silicon-based solar cells. In this framework, the comparison between dark and photo-induced noise allows the determination of important electronic parameters of the defect states. A detailed analysis of the electric noise, at different temperatur...

Light management is of crucial importance to reach high efficiencies with thin-film silicon multijunction solar cells. In this contribution, we present lightmanagement strategies that we recently developed. This includes high quality absorber materials, low-refractive index intermediate reflectors, and highly transparent multiscale electrodes. Specifically, we show the fabrication of high-effic...

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Silicon nanoarray hybrid solar cells benefit from the ease of fabrication and the cost-effectiveness of the hybrid structure, and represent a new research focus towards the utilization of solar energy. However, hybrid solar cells composed of both inorganic and organic components suffer from the notorious stability issue, which has to be tackled before the hybrid solar cells could become a viabl...