Optical Enhancement of Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells With Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Carbide Emitter

In this paper, the electrical and optical properties of p-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) are compared with p-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) widely used as emitter material of silicon heterojunction solar cells. The difference in solar-cell performance of the two emitters shows that p-type a-SiC:H emitter is able to enhance the short-circuit current density (J_sc) by reducing the parasitic absorption loss and reflection loss without degrading the electrical performance of devices. The application of the p-type a-SiC:H emitter can lead to a J_sc increase of about 1 mA/cm², compared with the p-type a-Si:H emitter. Our silicon heterojunction solar cell with p-type a-SiC:H emitter shows an active-area efficiency of 20.8% and the short-circuit current density of 40.3 mA/cm².