Stability of an amorphous SiC/Si tandem solar cell with blocking barriers

Abstract

A very stable amorphous SiC/Si (a-SiC/a-Si) heterojunction solar cell has been developed. The cell structure is of multijunction type with blocking barriers for the dopants and metal diffusion. This new tandem cell exhibits excellent stability for both thermal and sunlight conditions. After 2000 h of light exposure, an observable photodegradation is not seen in the cell performance. The improvements are achieved by the low-temperature deposition of first a p a-SiC layer, and by the blocking barriers for dopants and metal diffusion.