Tailored emission to boost open-circuit voltage in solar cells

Open-Circuit Voltage Physics in Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

We have performed computer calculations to explore effects of the p/i interface on the opencircuit voltage in a-Si:H based pin solar cells. The principal conclusions are that interface limitation can occur for values of VOC significantly below the built-in potential VBI of a cell, and that the effects can be understood in terms of thermionic emission of electrons from the intrinsic layer into t...

Polymer solar cells with enhanced open-circuit voltage and efficiency

Following the development of the bulk heterojunction1 structure, recent years have seen a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of polymer solar cells. Maximizing the open-circuit voltage in a low-bandgap polymer is one of the critical factors towards enabling high-efficiency solar cells. Study of the relation between open-circuit voltage and the energy levels of the donor/acceptor2 in bulk he...

crystalline silicon solar cell engineering to improve fill factor, open circuit voltage, short circuit current and overall cell efficiency

design and optimization of a single crystalline silicon (c-si) solar cell is performed to achieve the maximum light conversion efficiency. various parameters such as doping concentration and thicknesses, and geometrical dimension of surface pyramids are studied. the inverted surface pyramid is used to increase the efficiency of the solar cell, and engineered oxide layer is used as the passivati...

Relating the open-circuit voltage to interface molecular properties of donor:acceptor bulk heterojunction solar cells

Thermionic Emission Model for Interface Effects on the Open-circuit Voltage of Amorphous Silicon Based Solar Cells

We present computer modeling for effects of the p/i interface upon the open-circuit voltage VOC in amorphous silicon based pin solar cells. We show that the modeling is consistent with measurements on the intensitydependence for the interface effect, and we present an interpretation for the modeling based on thermionic emission of electrons over the electrostatic barrier at the p/i interface. W...