12 / 17
Page 38
conferenceseries
.com
Volume 08
Innovative Energy & Research
ISSN: 2576-1463
Advanced Energy Materials 2019
July 11-12, 2019
July 11-12, 2019 | Zurich, Switzerland
21
st
International Conference on
Advanced Energy Materials and Research
A framework for critically assessing the ideality of carrier-selective contacts for solar cells
Gabriel J Man
Uppsala University, Sweden
T
he simplest solar cell consists of a light absorber, sandwiched between two metals with dissimilar work functions.
Carrier-selective contacts (CSC’s), which are ubiquitous in modern solar cells, are added to improve the
electrical performance. The proper design and implementation of a CSC is crucial, as the performance, lifetime,
and/or cost reduction of a solar cell can be hampered by a single interface or layer. A framework, consisting of eight
core requirements, was developed from first-principles to evaluate the effectiveness of a given CSC. The framework
includes some requirements which are well-recognized, such as the need for appropriate band offsets, and some
requirements which are not well-recognized at the moment, such as the need for effective valence/conduction band
density of states matching between the absorber and CSC. The application of the framework to multiple silicon-
based CSC’s revealed the difficulties of effectively designing and implementing a CSC. Three metal oxide/silicon
heterojunctions - titanium dioxide/silicon (TiO
2
/Si), zinc oxide/silicon (ZnO/Si), and tin dioxide/silicon (SnO
2
/Si)
- initially expected to yield similar electron-selective contacts (ESC’s) were instead discovered to be widely different
in terms of their suitability as an ESC.
Recent Publications
1. G J S Man (2017) Metal oxide/semiconductor heterojunctions as carrier-selective contacts for photovoltaic
applications. Princeton University.
2. G Man, J Schwartz, J C Sturm and A Kahn (2016) Electronically passivated hole-blocking titanium dioxide/
silicon heterojunction for hybrid silicon photovoltaics. Adv. Mater. Interfaces 3(15):1600026.
3. K A Nagamatsu et al., (2015) Titanium dioxide/silicon hole-blocking selective contact to enable double-
heterojunction crystalline silicon-based solar cell. Appl. Phys. Lett., 106(12): 123906.
4. G Sahasrabudhe et al., (2015) Low-Temperature Synthesis of a TiO
2
/Si Heterojunction. J. Am. Chem. Soc.,
137(47):14842–14845.
5. S Avasthi, WEMcClain, GMan, AKahn, J Schwartz and J C Sturm (2013) Hole-blocking titanium-oxide/silicon
heterojunction and its application to photovoltaics. Appl. Phys. Lett., 102(20):203901.
Gabriel J Man, Innov Ener Res 2019, Volume 08