Effect of a wide band gap emitter layer and its patterning on the performance of a-Si:H based heterojunction solar cells

Author

Chatterjee, Parsathi

Author_Institution

Energy Res. Unit, Indian Assoc. for the Cultivation of Sci., Calcutta, India

Volume

1

fYear

1994

fDate

5-9 Dec 1994

Firstpage

595

Abstract

Simulation of carrier transport in heterojunction p-i-n structure solar cells has been used to study the effect of a wide band gap p-layer and its contact barrier height (φ_bo) on cell performance. We find recombination loss at the front contact is small when the emitter layer has a wider band gap. Thus the short circuit current in these structures is and practically independent of φ_bo. However, if φ_bo is held constant, the effect of increasing the p-layer band gap is actually to depress the open circuit voltage (V_oc). The performance of heterojunction cells deposited on ITO can then only be explained by assuming a larger φ _bo. A novel patterning of the p-a-Si-C:H layer has been explored and found to increase V_oc by 0.1 volts and the efficiency by over 10%

Keywords

amorphous semiconductors; electron-hole recombination; elemental semiconductors; energy gap; hydrogen; minority carriers; p-n heterojunctions; semiconductor device models; short-circuit currents; silicon; solar cells; ITO; Si:H; a-Si:H heterojunction solar cells; carrier transport simulation; contact barrier height; front contact; heterojunction p-i-n structure solar cells; open circuit voltage depression; p-a-Si-C:H layer; p-layer patterning; recombination loss; short circuit current; solar cell performance; wide band gap emitter layer; Electrons; Heterojunctions; Optical losses; PIN photodiodes; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Poisson equations; Short circuit currents; Voltage; Wideband;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 1994., Conference Record of the Twenty Fourth. IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference - 1994, 1994 IEEE First World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1460-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.1994.520031

Filename

520031