Role of surface recombination in affecting the efficiency of nanostructured thin-film solar cells

Yun Da; Yimin Xuan

doi:10.1364/OE.21.0A1065

Optics Express
Vol. 21,
Issue S6,
pp. A1065-A1077
(2013)
•https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.21.0A1065

Role of surface recombination in affecting the efficiency of nanostructured thin-film solar cells

Yun Da and Yimin Xuan

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Yun Da and Yimin Xuan, "Role of surface recombination in affecting the efficiency of nanostructured thin-film solar cells," Opt. Express 21, A1065-A1077 (2013)

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Abstract

Nanostructured light trapping is a promising way to improve the efficiency in thin-film solar cells recently. In this work, both the optical and electrical properties of thin-film solar cells with 1D periodic grating structure are investigated by using photoelectric coupling model. It is found that surface recombination plays a key role in determining the performance of nanostructured thin-film solar cells. Once the recombination effect is considered, the higher optical absorption does not mean the higher conversion efficiency as most existing publications claimed. Both the surface recombination velocity and geometric parameters of structure have great impact on the efficiency of thin-film solar cells. Our simulation results indicate that nanostructured light trapping will not only improve optical absorption but also boost the surface recombination simultaneously. Therefore, we must get the tradeoffs between optical absorption and surface recombination to obtain the maximum conversion efficiency. Our work makes it clear that both the optical absorption and electrical recombination response should be taken into account simultaneously in designing the nanostructured thin-film solar cells.

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Fig. 1 Schematics of the simulation structure of thin-film solar cells. (a) First reference cell with planar surface. (b) Second reference cell with an optimal antireflection coating. (c) 1D periodic grating of light trapping structure. The value of the thickness is fixed as d₁ = 0.4 µm.

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Fig. 2 Results of three structure c-Si thin-film solar cells. (a) Absorption spectra in the c-Si layer. (b) Maximum achievable photocurrent density to show light trapping effect. (c) Optical generation rate. (d) Simulated J-V and P-V characteristics with different surface recombination velocity. The blue, red and black lines correspond to the results for grating structure, antireflective coating structure and planar structure, respectively.

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Fig. 3 PCE of different configurations for c-Si thin-film solar cells with varied surface recombination velocity.

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Fig. 4 Results of grating structure thin-film solar cells with different geometric parameters. (a) Absorption spectra. (b) Maximum achievable photocurrent density to show light trapping effect. (c) Simulated J-V and P-V characteristics under ideal condition. (d) Simulated J-V and P-V characteristics under considering recombination condition. (e) The contribution of each recombination process to the PCE of the nanostructured thin-film solar cells.

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Fig. 5 Parametric analysis of the optimized process for light trapping structure. (a) Maximum achievable photocurrent density and PCE vs

Λ

. (b) Maximum achievable photocurrent density and PCE vs

h

. (c) Maximum achievable photocurrent density and PCE vs

f

. (d) Electrically optimized J-V and P-V characteristics.

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Tables (1)

Table 1 Typical parameters for silicon thin-film solar cells in the simulation

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Equations (15)

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G_{o p t} (r) = \int_{λ_{\min}}^{λ_{\max}} \frac{ε^{"} {| E (r, λ) |}^{2}}{2 ℏ} I_{A M 1.5} (λ) d λ

J_{s c \max} = \int_{λ_{\min}}^{λ_{\max}} e \frac{λ}{h c} A (λ) I_{A M 1.5} (λ) d λ

\nabla \cdot (ε \nabla ϕ) = q (p - n + N_{D} - N_{A})

\nabla \cdot J_{n} = - q (G - R)

\nabla \cdot J_{p} = q (G - R)

J_{n} = - q μ_{n} n \nabla ϕ + q D_{n} \nabla n

J_{p} = - q μ_{p} p \nabla ϕ - q D_{p} \nabla p

{\begin{cases} D_{n} = \frac{k_{B} T}{q} μ_{n} \\ D_{p} = \frac{k_{B} T}{q} μ_{p} \end{cases}

R = R_{r a d} + R_{S R H} + R_{A u g} + R_{s u r f}

R_{r a d} = B (n p - n_{i}^{2})

R_{S R H} = \frac{n p - n_{i}^{2}}{τ_{p} (n + n_{1}) + τ_{n} (p + p_{1})}

R_{A u g} = (C_{n 0} n + C_{p 0} p) (n p - n_{i}^{2})

R_{s u r f} = \frac{n p - n_{i}^{2}}{\frac{1}{S_{p}} (n + n_{1 s}) + \frac{1}{S_{n}} (p + p_{1 s})}

μ_{n} = 92 + \frac{1268}{1 + {(\frac{N_{D} + N_{A}}{1.3 \times 10^{17}})}^{0.91}} {cm}^{2} /Vs

μ_{p} = 54.3 + \frac{406.9}{1 + {(\frac{N_{D} + N_{A}}{2.35 \times 10^{17}})}^{0.88}} {cm}^{2} /Vs

Parameters	Values	Unit
$ε$	11.7
$E_{g}$	1.12	$eV$
$N_{A}$	$10^{16}$	${cm}^{-3}$
$N_{D}$	$10^{19}$	${cm}^{-3}$
$μ_{n}$	115.886	${cm}^{2} /Vs$
$μ_{p}$	68.7524	${cm}^{2} /Vs$
$B$	$1.8 \times 10^{- 15}$	${cm}^{3} /s$
$τ_{n}$	$3.3 \times 10^{- 7}$	$s$
$τ_{p}$	$8.2 \times 10^{- 5}$	$s$
$C_{n 0}$	$2.8 \times 10^{- 31}$	${cm}^{6} /s$
$C_{p 0}$	$9.9 \times 10^{- 32}$	${cm}^{6} /s$
$S_{n}$ , $S_{p}$	$10^{2} - 10^{5}$	$cm/s$
T	300	$K$

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Equations (15)

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