Solar cells and photodetectors are devices that convert an optical input into current. A solar cell is an example of a photovoltaic device, i.e, a device that generates voltage when exposed to light. The photovoltaic effect was discovered by Alexander-Edmond Becquerel in 1839, in a junction formed between an electrode (platinum) and an electrolyte (silver chloride). The first photovoltaic devic...

Hot carrier thermalization is a major source of efficiency loss in solar cells. Because of the subpicosecond time scale and complex physics involved, a microscopic characterization of hot carriers is challenging even for the simplest materials. We develop and apply an ab initio approach based on density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory to investigate hot carriers in semicondu...

On the path to terawatt levels of PV generation, c-Si will be unstoppable, but it might gain an ally along way – new material developments enabling Si-based multijunction solar cells could potentially next major innovation in PV.

We present the optical investigation of a novel back-contacted architecture for solar cells based on a thin barium (di)silicide (BaSi2) absorber. First, through the analysis of absorption limits of different semiconducting materials, we show the potential of BaSi2 for photovoltaic applications. Then, the proposed back contacted BaSi2 solar cell design is investigated and optimized. An implied p...

In this study, silicon nitride (SiNx) thin films were deposited on polyimide (PI) substrates as barrier layers by a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system. The gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) thin films were deposited on PI and SiNx/PI substrates at room temperature (RT), 100 and 200 °C by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The thicknesses of the GZO and SiNx thin films...

High quality epitaxial indium zinc oxide (heavily indium oxide doped) (epi-n-IZO) thin films were optimized by laser-molecular beam epitaxy (L-MBE) i.e., pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique for fabricating novel isoand hetero-semiconductor–insulator–semiconductor (SIS) type solar cells using Johnson Matthey ‘‘specpure’’grade 90% In2O3 mixed 10% ZnO (as commercial indium tin oxide (ITO) comp...

Optimizing any tandem solar cells design before making them experimentally is an important way of reducing development costs. Hence, in this work, we have used a complete analytical model that includes the effects depletion regions III-V compound order to simulate behavior two and four-terminal InGaP/GaAs//Si for optimizing them. The optimization procedure described first, then it shown expecte...

III-V compound semiconductors and SiGe alloys can be combined to develop multijunction solar cells on Silicon substrates with optimum bandgap combinations. Current implementations of such devices have reached efficiencies over 20%, using thick –and thus costly– buffer layers which induce the appearance cracks in large area samples. As a strategy mitigate these two issues (thick buffers cracking...

在Si衬底上制备的Cu2ZnSnS4(CZTS)太阳能电池具有CZTS与Si衬底的晶格失配低的优点, 但目前其转换效率仍较低. 本文采用异质结太阳能电池仿真软件Afors-het对Si衬底CZTS太阳能电池进行数值计算. 对现有的p-CZTS/n-Si太阳能电池的计算结果表明, 在该电池结构中p-CZTS和n-Si分别起窗口层和吸收层的作用, 但p-CZTS具有高光吸收系数, 使大部分入射光无法透过p-CZTS层进而被n-Si吸收, 限制了电池的转换效率. 本文提出以p-Si作为衬底的n-ZnO:Al/i-ZnO/n-CdS/p-CZTS/p-Si太阳能电池结构. 计算得到的p-CZTS/p-Si结构的暗态电流密度-电压(J–V)特性曲线均为线性曲线, 表明p-CZTS与p-Si为欧姆接触以及p-Si作为p-CZTS的背电极的...