High performance carbon nanotube/silicon heterojunction solar cells

Abstract

A key obstacle for Terra-watt deployment of solar cells is the high cost of materials and fabrication processes. Here, we report the development of an advanced spraying technique for the fabrication of carbon nanotube (CNT) and crystalline silicon (Si) heterojunction solar cells for both planar and dual radial geometries. The nanostructured dual radial p-n junction array solar cells offer a great opportunity to produce efficient solar cells with low cost materials. We have optimized the spray technique and engineered the CNT/Si interface for CNT/Si solar cell of planar geometry and achieved power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.5% at AM1.5G. For CNT/Si solar cell of dual radial geometry, initial test revealed an ideality factor of 3.85, which suggests that these devices can be further optimized beyond this initial proof of concept.