Metal/insulator/semiconductor carrier selective contacts for photovoltaic cells

Author

Islam, Rashed ; Saraswat, Krishna C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

8-13 June 2014

Abstract

A novel solar cell structure using metal/insulator (TiO₂ and NiO)/semiconductor (MIS) structures as carrier selective contacts on both Si and GaAs is proposed. These cells do not use any diffused p-n junction to separate the carriers. Simulations show that these cells can provide a very high open circuit voltage. Using MIS contacts a three terminal multi-material solar cell composed of two independently operating subcells of GaAs and Si is introduced. Since no current matching is required, a combined efficiency of 39% can be achieved. This technology can enable high efficiency solar cells at a low cost.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; gallium arsenide; silicon; solar cells; GaAs; MIS contacts; MIS structures; NiO; Si; TiO₂; carrier selective contacts; metal-insulator-semiconductor carrier selective contacts; multimaterial solar cell; open circuit voltage; p-n junction; photovoltaic cells; Gallium arsenide; Metals; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaic systems; Radiative recombination; Silicon; Carrier selective contacts; GaAs; Junction-less solar cell; NiO; Silicon; TiO2; Tri-terminal solar cell;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), 2014 IEEE 40th

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2014.6924915

Filename

6924915