Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells · 2016 · 21 citations · 22 references
EngineeringMaterials EngineeringMaterials ScienceEnergy MaterialsSemiconductor DevicesSemiconductor MaterialsPhotoelectrochemistryPhotovoltaic DevicesSemiconductor Device MaterialsSilicon MaterialsSolar Cell MaterialsSolar CellsFill FactorHeterojunction DevicesHeterojunction Solar CellsJunction EngineeringPhotoelectrochemical CellsSilicon Solar CellsSolar-to-hydrogen ConversionTandem Solar Cells
A hybrid tandem solar cell consisting of a thin-film, nanocrystalline silicon top junction and a silicon heterojunction bottom junction is proposed as a supporting solar cell for photoelectrochemical applications. Tunneling recombination junction engineering is shown to be an important consideration in designing this type of solar cell. The best hybrid cell produced has a spectral utilization of 30.6 mA cm−2 a JSC of 14 mA cm−2, a VOC of 1.1 V, a fill factor of 0.67 and thus an efficiency of 10.3%. A high solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 7.9% can be predicted when using the hybrid cell in conjunction with current a-SiC photocathode technology.
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