Heterojunctions in photovoltaic applications

Abstract

Numerical simulations on silicon solar cells with heteroemitter layers made from various wide-gap semiconductors are described and the dependence of the I-V curves on the band offsets is explained. The main advantage utilizing heteroemitters on silicon is the chance for an improved response in the blue region of the solar spectrum which may achieve an increase of the total photo-current up to 10%. Experimental results on test solar cells with μc-Si, ZnO, and SIPOS heteroemitters are presented and compared with these predictions.