Two different techniques for the electronic surface passivation of silicon solar cells, the plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition of silicon nitride (SiN) and the fabrication of thin thermal silicon oxide/plasma SiN stack structures, are investigated. It is demonstrated that, despite their low thermal budget, both techniques are capable of giving an outstanding surface passivation quality ...

Front page headlines in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in 1954 heralded to the world the demonstration of the first reasonably efficient solar cells, an event made possible by the rapid development of crystalline silicon technology for miniaturised electronics. Since that time, the majority of solar cells fabricated to date have been based on silicon in monocrystalline or large-...

An efficient antireflection coating is critical for the improvement of silicon solar cell performance via increased light coupling. Here, we have grown well-aligned ZnO nanowhisker (NW) arrays on Czochralski silicon solar cells by a seeding-growth two-step process. It is found that the ZnO NWs have a great effect on the macroscopic antireflection effect and, therefore, improves the solar cell p...

We have developed the 3-dimensional optical model for thin film silicon solar cells (amorphous, microcrystalline, single or multijunction) with nanorough surfaces/interfaces. For these cells the external quantum efficiency, short circuit current, total reflectance and all absorption losses can be computed taking into account roughness, angular distribution of scattered light, thicknesses and ex...

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The cost-effectiveness of market-dominating silicon wafer solar cells plays a key role in determining the competiveness of solar energy with other exhaustible energy sources. Reducing the silicon wafer thickness at a minimized efficiency loss represents a mainstream trend in increasing the cost-effectiveness of wafer-based solar cells. In this paper we demonstrate that, using the advanced light...

In this paper, we will present a Pc1D numerical simulation for heterojunction (HJ) silicon solar cells, and discuss their possibilities and limitations. By means of modeling and numerical computer simulation, the influence of emitter-layer/intrinsic-layer/crystalline-Si heterostructures with different thickness and crystallinity on the solar cell performance is investigated and compared with ho...

We report herein on the effects of silicon nanowire with different morphology on the device performance of n-SiNW/PEDOT:PSS hybrid solar cells. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) and external quantum efficiency (EQE) of the SiNW/PEDOT:PSS hybrid solar cells can be optimized by varying the length of the silicon nanowires. The optimal length of silicon nanowires is 0.23 μm, and the hybrid sola...

The influence of the interface morphologies on amorphous silicon thin-film solar cells prepared on randomly textured substrates was studied. A simple three-dimensional geometrical model was developed to describe the surface morphology of amorphous silicon films and thin-film solar cells. The simulated surface morphologies are confirmed by experimental measurements. A detailed understanding of t...