Simulation of a-Si: H/c-Si heterojunction solar cells: From planar junction to local junction

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ab5212

Abstract In order to obtain higher conversion efficiency and to reduce production cost for hydrogenated amorphous silicon/crystalline silicon (a-Si:H/c-Si) based heterojunction solar cells, an a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction with localized p-n structure (HACL) is designed. A numerical simulation is performed with the ATLAS program. The effect of the a-Si:H layer on the performance of the HIT (heterojunction with intrinsic thin film) solar cell is investigated. The performance improvement mechanism for the HACL cell is explored. The potential performance of the HACL solar cell is compared with those of the HIT and HACD (heterojunction of amorphous silicon and crystalline silicon with diffused junction) solar cells. The simulated results indicate that the a-Si:H layer can bring about much absorption loss. The conversion efficiency and the short-circuit current density of the HACL cell can reach 28.18% and 43.06 mA/cm², respectively, and are higher than those of the HIT and HACD solar cells. The great improvement are attributed to (1) decrease of optical absorption loss of a-Si:H and (2) decrease of photocarrier recombination for the HACL cell. The double-side local junction is very suitable for the bifacial solar cells. For an HACL cell with n-type or p-type c-Si base, all n-type or p-type c-Si passivating layers are feasible for convenience of the double-side diffusion process. Moreover, the HACL structure can reduce the consumption of rare materials since the transparent conductive oxide (TCO) can be free in this structure. It is concluded that the HACL solar cell is a promising structure for high efficiency and low cost.

Keywords: silicon solar cell a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction short-circuit current local junction

Received: 08 September 2019
Revised: 13 October 2019
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	85.30.De	(Semiconductor-device characterization, design, and modeling)
	88.30.gg	(Design and simulation)
	85.60.Gz	(Photodetectors (including infrared and CCD detectors))

Fund: Project supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB1500403), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11964018, 61741404, and 61464007), and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province of China (Grant No. 20181BAB202027).

Corresponding Authors: Lang Zhou, Jiren Yuan
E-mail: lzhou@ncu.edu.cn;yuanjiren@ncu.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Haibin Huang(黄海宾), Lang Zhou(周浪), Jiren Yuan(袁吉仁), Zhijue Quan(全知觉) Simulation of a-Si: H/c-Si heterojunction solar cells: From planar junction to local junction 2019 Chin. Phys. B 28 128503

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