Analysis of the conversion efficiencies of β-FeSi2 and BaSi2 solar cells

β-FeSi₂ and BaSi₂ both have large absorption coefficients, thus they are very promising Si-based new material for solar cell applications. In this paper, the dc characteristics of β-FeSi₂ and BaSi₂ pn junction solar cell are investigated by solving the charge transport equations with optical generation. The distributions of minority carrier densities, the free electron and hole diffusion current densities, and the drift current density in the depletion region are calculated. The conversion efficiencies are obtained from the calculated I-V curves. The calculated conversion efficiency of β-FeSi₂ solar cell is about 17% and of BaSi₂ solar cell is 14%.