High efficiency solar cells using quantum interferences

In this paper, we propose a solar cell model that absorbs specific band of sunlight and investigate the effect of noise–induced quantum coherence in enhancing the output power of this cell. We numerically demonstrate that such induced coherence can increase the maximum output power from a nano structured solar cell by more than 25% as compared to the same system with no coherence. We also study the influence of increasing the bandwidth of absorption on the solar cell power and numerically show that in spite of decrease in output power due to enhancement of thermalisation loss, presence of quantum coherence effect still increases the output power of solar cell compared to non-coherence case.     

单室沉积高效非晶硅/微晶硅叠层太阳电池的研究

采用甚高频等离子体增强化学气相沉积技术,在前期单室沉积的微晶硅薄膜太阳电池和非晶硅/微晶硅叠层太阳电池研究的基础上,通过对微晶硅底电池本征层硅烷浓度的优化,获得了初始效率达到11.02%(电池面积1.0 cm²)的非晶硅/微晶硅叠层太阳电池.同时,100 cm²的非晶硅/微晶硅叠层太阳电池的组件效率也达到了9.04%. 关键词： 非晶硅/微晶硅叠层电池 单室 甚高频     

Detailed balance limit efficiency of silicon intermediate band solar cells

The detailed balance method is used to study the potential of the intermediate band solar cell (IBSC), which can improve the efficiency of the Si-based solar cell with a bandgap between 1.1 eV to 1.7 eV. It shows that a crystalline silicon solar cell with an intermediate band located at 0.36 eV below the conduction band or above the valence band can reach a limiting efficiency of 54% at the maximum light concentration, improving greatly than 40.7% of the Shockley—Queisser limit for the single junction Si solar cell. The simulation also shows that the limiting efficiency of the silicon-based solar cell increases as the bandgap increases from 1.1 eV to 1.7 eV, and the amorphous Si solar cell with a bandgap of 1.7 eV exhibits a radiative limiting efficiency of 62.47%, having a better potential.     

Direct laser printing for high efficiency silicon solar cells fabrication

Silicon solar cells still require cost reduction and improved efficiency to become more competitive. New architectures can provide a significant increase in efficiency, but today most of the approaches need additional fabrication steps. In this context, laser processing offers a unique way to replace technological steps like photolithography that is not compatible with the requirements of the photovoltaic industry. In particular laser induced thermal effects can be used to activate or re-organise dopants at the silicon surface to design new emitter geometries. In this paper dopant diffusion using a nanosecond UV laser on phosphorous-doped silicon emitters is studied. The presence of a phosphosilicate glass underneath a silicon nitride layer leads to a local decrease of the emitter sheet resistance from 100 Ω/sq to 20 Ω/sq. Laser induced damage, phosphorus diffusion profile and electrical shunt are assessed in the perspective of selective emitter silicon solar cells fabrication compatible with electrochemical metal contacts deposition.     

High critical oxygen concentration in microcrystalline silicon solar cells

For microcrystalline silicon based p–i–n solar cells the effect of deposition conditions on the critical oxygen concentration was investigated. All solar cells were prepared by 13.56 MHz plasma‐enhanced chemical vapour deposition. The critical oxygen concentration defines the lowest oxygen concentration in the intrinsic absorber layer causing a deterioration of the solar cell performance. For intentional contamination of ～1.2–1.3 µm thick i‐layers, the oxygen was inserted by a controllable leak at the process gases supply line, i.e. by a gas pipe leak. For µc‐Si:H deposited at a discharge power of 0.53 W/cm² we find a critical oxygen concentration of 1–2 × 10¹⁹ cm^–3 in agreement with values commonly reported in literature. However, changing the deposition conditions, we find that the critical oxygen concentration in µc‐Si:H cells is not fixed. At reduced power of 0.20 W/cm² a much higher value for the critical oxygen concentration of 1 × 10²⁰ cm^–3 is observed. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

High efficiency solar cells with multilayered structures containing graphene

The design of antireflection coating (ARC) comprising artificial graphene for solar cells is challenging due to the new promising physical and chemical properties. Theoretical and numerical discussion of a multilayered structure solar cell model containing graphene have been presented. Transverse Electric (TE) of incident light with both normal and oblique illuminations on the proposed structure is considered. The expressions of optical fields in each region are determined by using the amplitudes of the forward and backward traveling waves. In the numerical results, the mentioned field and the excitons generation rate are computed and illustrated versus the angle of incidence, the layer thickness and the structure parameters when grapheme thickness changes.     

Nanocystalline silicon solar cells

Nanocrystalline silicon material has made rapid progress in the last several years and at present it can be defined as real device quality as a photoactive layer for solar cells. A number of innovative ideas, such as the deposition at the crystalline to amorphous transition, at high pressure depletion condition, by taming of the ion energy, by grading of the material growth, at reduced unwanted dopant incorporation, have helped to reach an efficiency of 10% for single junction nanocrystalline silicon cells. In situ plasma and gas phase diagnosis have contributed to the fast optimisation of deposition process parameters. Deposition rate, open circuit voltage and light confinement are some of most critical issues that are currently pursued. Materials with a defect density as low as 10¹⁵ cm⁻³ have been made, however, they are still not good enough for n–p junctions; the device structure is still of drift type in a p–i–n or n–i–p configuration.     

提高微晶硅薄膜太阳电池效率的研究

采用甚高频等离子体增强化学气相沉积技术制备了系列微晶硅薄膜太阳电池，指出了气体总流量和背反射电极的类型对电池性能参数的影响.电池的I-V测试结果表明：随反应气体总流量的增加，对应电池的短路电流密度、开路电压和填充因子都有很大程度的提高，结果使得电池的光电转换效率得以提高.另外，ZnO/Ag/Al背反射电极能明显提高电池的短路电流密度，进而也提高了电池的光电转换效率.对气体总流量和背反射电极类型影响电池效率的原因进行了分析. 关键词： 微晶硅薄膜太阳电池 气体流量 ZnO/Ag/Al背反射电极     

载流子选择性接触:高效硅太阳电池的选择

太阳电池可看成由光子吸收层和接触层两个基本单元组成,接触层是高复合活性金属界面和光子吸收层之间的区域.为了进一步提高硅太阳电池的转换效率,关键是降低光子吸收层和接触之间的复合损失.近年来,载流子选择性接触引起了光伏界的研究兴趣,其被认为是接近硅太阳电池效率理论极限的最后的障碍之一.本文分析了三种类型的载流子选择性接触:在光子吸收层与金属界面之间引入薄的重掺杂层,即所谓的发射极或背面场;利用两种材料之间的导带或价带对齐;利用高功函数的金属氧化物与晶硅接触从而在晶硅中感应能带弯曲.基于一维太阳电池模拟软件wx AMPS,模拟了扩散同质结硅太阳电池[结构为(p~+)c-Si/(n)c-Si/(n~+)c-Si]、非晶硅薄膜硅异质结太阳电池[结构为(p~+)a-Si/(i)a-Si/(n)c-Si/(i)a-Si/(n~+)a-Si]和氧化物薄膜硅异质结太阳电池[结构为(n)MoO_x/(n)c-Si/(n)TiO_x]暗态下的能带结构和载流子浓度的空间分布,其中c-Si为晶硅;a-Si为非晶硅;(i),(n)和(p)分别表示本征、n型掺杂和p型掺杂.模拟结果表明:载流子选择性接触的核心是在接触处晶硅表面附近形成载流子浓度空间分布的不对称进而使得电导率的不对称,形成了对电子的高阻和空穴的低阻或者对空穴的高阻和电子的低阻,从而让空穴轻松通过同时阻挡电子,或者让电子轻松通过同时阻挡空穴,形成空穴选择性接触或者电子选择性接触.     

The effect of anti-reflection coating of porous silicon on solar cells efficiency

Anti-reflection coatings of solar cells have been fabricated using different techniques. The techniques used include SiO₂ thermal oxidation, ZnO/TiO₂ sputtering deposition and porous silicon prepared by electrochemical etching. Surface morphology and structural properties of solar cells were investigated by using scanning electron microscopy and atomic forces microscopy. Optical reflectance was obtained by using optical reflectometer. I-V characterizations were studied under 80 mW/cm² illumination conditions. Porous silicon was found to be an excellent anti-reflection coating against incident light when it is compared with another anti-reflection coating and exhibited good light-trapping of a wide wavelength spectrum which produced high efficiency solar cells.     

High efficiency silicon nitride grating coupler

In this paper, we have designed, fabricated and characterized silicon nitride grating couplers with high efficiency at 1490 nm. The devices are fabricated using deep UV photolithography with resolution requirement of ～500 nm. The grating coupler fabricated yields a peak coupling efficiency of ?5.1 dB. The 1-dB bandwidth of the grating coupler is 60 nm.     

Amorphous silicon solar cells on nano‐imprinted commodity paper without sacrificing efficiency

Paper is a cheap substrate which is in principle compatible with the process temperature applied in the plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) and hot wire CVD (HWCVD) of thin film silicon solar cells. The main drawback of paper for this application is the porosity due to its fibre like structure. The feature size (micrometre scale) is larger than the thickness of the applied photovoltaic layers. To overcome this problem, UV curable lacquer was used to planarize the surface. Plain 80 grams printer paper was taken as a substrate and the lacquer smoothens the rough surface of the paper such that a designed nanostructure can be imprinted for light scattering. In this manner single junction amorphous silicon solar cells with a HWCVD deposited intrinsic layer were processed on paper, without any concessions to the process temperature of 200 °C. The cell performance is comparable to that of reference cells grown on stainless steel, proving that solar cells can be deposited on paper substrates without sacrificing performance. PV on paper could be applied as ”disposable” power source for gadgets, electronic labelling, remote sensing systems, etc. (Internet of Things). (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Radiation effects in silicon solar cells

Silicon solar cells have been utilized as the principal source of electrical energy for space satellites during the past decade. Despite the reliability of these photovoltaic devices, degradation of their power output by charged particle radiation in the earth's geomagnetic field has continued to be the primary problem for their use on flights of long-duration. A study of radiation damage induced by 1 MeV electrons in a variety of current silicon solar cell types has been conducted as a function of dopant impurity and resistivity of the base region. A companion study of radiation damage induced by nominal 0.2 MeV protons was performed in solar cells with coverslips having small cell areas exposed alongside the coverslip. The photovoltaic current-voltage characteristics were measured under a solar simulator emitting 140mW/cm² at air mass zero. Irradiations were performed at room temperature to fluences of 1 × 10¹⁵ e/cm² and 1 × 10¹⁵ p/cm². The efficiency of 10 ohm-cm cells after large fluences was superior to cells of 2 ohm-cm base resistivity. No significant differences were observed between boron- and aluminum-doped cells. Solar cell exposure to low energy Protons resulted in an 8 per cent loss in power at a fluence of 1 × 10¹⁴ p/cm² when as little as 2 per cent of the solar cell surface was left unshielded.     

Low-porosity porous silicon nanostructures on monocrystalline silicon solar cells

In this work we present a study of low-porosity porous silicon (PS) nanostructures stain etched on monocrystalline silicon solar cells. The PS layers reduce the reflectance, improve the diffusion of dopants by rapid thermal processes, and increase the homogeneity of the sheet resistance. Some samples were subjected to chemical oxidation in HNO₃ to reduce the porosity of the surface layer. After the diffusion process, deposition of a SiN_x antireflection layer, and screen printing of the samples, an efficiency of 15.5% is obtained for low-porosity PS solar cells, compared with an efficiency of 10.0% for standard PS cells and 14.9% for the reference Cz cells.     

钙钛矿/晶硅叠层太阳能电池的研究进展

有机—无机杂化钙钛矿电池因其禁带宽度可调、光吸收系数高、光电转化效率高、制备成本低等优点而被用于硅基叠层太阳能电池中,使得太阳能电池的转换效率提高,生产成本降低,应用范围也更为广泛。文章介绍了钙钛矿吸收材料和钙钛矿/晶硅叠层电池的工作原理,对钙钛矿/晶硅叠层电池的类别、影响其性能的主要因素进行了归纳综述,对钙钛矿/晶硅叠层电池未来发展进行了展望。     

Thin macroporous silicon heterojunction solar cells

We demonstrate the processing of a heterojunction solar cell from a purely macroporous silicon (MacPSi) absorber that is generated and separated from a monocrystalline n‐type Cz silicon wafer by means of electrochemical etching. The etching procedure results in straight pores with a diameter of (4.7 ± 0.2) µm and a distance of 8.3 µm. An intrinsic amorphous Si (a‐Si)/p⁺‐type a‐Si/indium tin oxide (ITO) layer stack is on the front side and an intrinsic a‐Si/n⁺‐type a‐Si/ITO layer stack is on the rear side. The pores are open when depositing the layers onto the 3.92 cm²‐sized cell. The conductive layers do not cause shunting through the pores. A silicon oxide layer passivates the pore walls. The energy‐conversion efficiency of the (33 ± 2) µm thick cell is 7.2%. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

High-resolution mapping of the energy conversion efficiency of solar cells and silicon photodiodes in photovoltaic mode

We demonstrate an optical technique to derive the two-dimensional energy conversion efficiency (η_CE), fill factor (FF) and external quantum efficiency (η_QE) distributions across the surface of photovoltaic devices. A compact, inexpensive optical-feedback laser diode microscope is constructed to acquire the confocal reflectance and efficiency maps enabling the observation of the local parametric behavior in silicon photodiodes in photovoltaic mode and single-junction solar cells. The η_CE and η_QE distributions are greatly influenced by local parasitic resistances that depend on laser irradiance. These parasitic resistances decrease the η_CE and η_QE values with distance from the contact electrode at high laser irradiance. The optical technique enables microscopic comparison of η_CE and η_QE within the pn-overlay region of the photodiode sample, revealing its optimization for photodetection rather than power generation. The technique also elucidates the decreasing local η_CE of the solar cell under intense irradiation.     

Potential of amorphous silicon for solar cells

This paper reviews recent developments in the field of amorphous-silicon-based thin-film solar cells and discusses potentials for further improvements. Creative efforts in materials research, device physics, and process engineering have led to highly efficient solar cells based on amorphous hydrogenated silicon. Sophisticated multijunction solar cell designs make use of its unique material properties and strongly suppress light induced degradation. Texture-etching of sputtered ZnO:Al films is presented as a novel technique to design optimized light trapping schemes for silicon thin-film solar cells in both p-i-n and n-i-p device structure. Necessary efforts will be discussed to close the efficiency gap between the highest stabilized efficiencies demonstrated on lab scale and efficiencies achieved in production. In case of a-Si:H/a-Si:H stacked cells prepared on glass substrates, significant reduction of process-related losses and the development of superior TCO substrates on large areas promise distinctly higher module efficiencies. A discussion of future perspectives comprises the potential of new deposition techniques and concepts combining the advantages of amorphous and crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells. Received: 1 March 1999 / Accepted: 28 March 1999 / Published online: 14 June 1999     

对硅薄膜型太阳电池的一些思考

在当前迅速发展的绿色环保能源中,硅太阳电池一直占据着首要地位.然而晶体硅太阳电池(单晶硅和多晶硅)由于价格昂贵和材料短缺已不能满足绿色能源快速发展的需要.因此,薄膜型太阳电池已经被视为今后发展的主要方向.非晶硅薄膜太阳电池虽然在性能上还具有不少缺点,但随着薄膜沉积技术的改进以及膜本身质量的不断提高,它在太阳电池领域中仍占有一席之地.多晶硅薄膜太阳电池集晶体硅与非晶硅电池的优点为一体,也受到人们的关注.然而,后起之秀纳米硅薄膜太阳电池,依靠其本身的优越性以及当前纳米技术的进展,将会成为一个新的亮点.     

Degradation of boron-doped Czochralski-grown silicon solar cells

The formation mechanism and properties of the boron-oxygen center responsible for the degradation of Czochralski-grown Si(B) solar cells during operation is investigated using density functional calculations. We find that boron traps an oxygen dimer to form a bistable defect with a donor level in the upper half of the band gap. The activation energy for its dissociation is found to be 1.2 eV. The formation of the defect from mobile oxygen dimers, which are shown to migrate by a Bourgoin mechanism under minority carrier injection, has a calculated activation energy of 0.3 eV. These energies and the dependence of the generation rate of the recombination center on boron concentration are in good agreement with observations.