Optical modeling of an efficient water splitting device based on bismuth vanadate photoanode and micromorph silicon solar cells

Author

Lihao Han ; Abdi, Fatwa F. ; van de Krol, Roel ; Dam, Bernard ; Zeman, M. ; Smets, Arno H. M.

Author_Institution

Photovoltaic Mater. & Devices (PVMD) Lab., Delft Univ. of Technol., Delft, Netherlands

fYear

2014

fDate

8-13 June 2014

Firstpage

3083

Lastpage

3086

Abstract

We demonstrate a photoelectrochemical/photovoltaic (PEC/PV) device based on a combined configuration with a bismuth vanadate (BiVO₄) photoanode in the front and a thin film solar cell as power source in the rear. An optical model of this PEC/PV configuration is built by our in-house developed Advance Semiconductor Analysis (ASA) software. Micromorph (a-Si:H/nc-Si:H) cells are investigated in the optical model in reference to the photoanode filtered solar spectrum. The optimum micromorph cell with 400 nm a-Si:H i-layer is confirmed to have the best performance when combined with BiVO₄ photoanode. A solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 5.2%, the highest conversion efficiency of metal oxide materials ever reported is achieved.

Keywords

bismuth compounds; elemental semiconductors; power engineering computing; silicon; solar cells; thin film devices; vanadium compounds; ASA software; BiVO₄; PEC configuration; PV configuration; Si:H; advance semiconductor analysis software; conversion efficiency; efficiency 5.2 percent; metal oxide materials; micromorph silicon solar cells; optical modeling; optimum micromorph cell; photoanode filtered solar spectrum; photoelectrochemical device; photovoltaic device; power source; thin film solar cell; water splitting device; Bismuth; Junctions; Lighting; Optical films; Photovoltaic cells; Silicon; optical modeling; solar hydrogen production; spectrum utilization;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), 2014 IEEE 40th

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2014.6925589

Filename

6925589