Silicon solar cells with nano-crystalline silicon down shifter: experiment and modeling

Yoann Jestin; Georg Pucker; Mher Ghulinyan; Lorenza Ferrario; Pierluigi Bellutti; Antonio Picciotto; Amos Collini; Alessandro Marconi; Aleksei Anopchenko; Zhizhong Yuan; Lorenzo Pavesi

doi:10.1117/12.861978

24 August 2010 Silicon solar cells with nano-crystalline silicon down shifter: experiment and modeling

Yoann Jestin, Georg Pucker, Mher Ghulinyan, Lorenza Ferrario, Pierluigi Bellutti, Antonio Picciotto, Amos Collini, Alessandro Marconi, Aleksei Anopchenko, Zhizhong Yuan, Lorenzo Pavesi

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7772, Next Generation (Nano) Photonic and Cell Technologies for Solar Energy Conversion; 77720B (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861978
Event: SPIE Solar Energy + Technology, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Materials used as luminescent down shifters (LDS) have to absorb light effectively in the spectral area where solar cells have poor internal quantum efficiency. At the same time these materials have to emit most of the absorbed spectral powers at lower energies where the internal quantum efficiency of the solar cell is close to the maximum. The effects of silicon nanocrystals prepared by thermal treatment of a silicon-rich-oxide (SRO) layer on the efficiency of c-Si cells are investigated in this paper. The SRO layer is characterized by a high photoluminescence peak at around 800 nm. Influence of the active layer on light transmission and on the modification of the optical spectra due to photoluminescence generation has been determined with the help of optical measurements and transfer matrix simulations. The solar cell efficiency for cells with and without down-shifting layer were measured under illumination with AM1.5G solar spectrum and compared with the simulations. Finally, we model the behavior of cells with and without LDS layer showing that a cell with LDS suffers less from bad surface passivation.

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Yoann Jestin, Georg Pucker, Mher Ghulinyan, Lorenza Ferrario, Pierluigi Bellutti, Antonio Picciotto, Amos Collini, Alessandro Marconi, Aleksei Anopchenko, Zhizhong Yuan, and Lorenzo Pavesi "Silicon solar cells with nano-crystalline silicon down shifter: experiment and modeling", Proc. SPIE 7772, Next Generation (Nano) Photonic and Cell Technologies for Solar Energy Conversion, 77720B (24 August 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.861978

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