Amorphous silicon/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells — Analysis of lateral conduction through the inversion layer

We examine the contribution of the inversion layer, present at the amorphous silicon/crystalline silicon interface, to the lateral conduction of photogenerated charge carriers. We employ numerical simulation and experiments to determine if this layer can be exploited to replace the transparent conductive oxide layer (TCO). We found that current collection is constant when the TCO is present, but carriers can only travel a few hundred μm when the TCO is omitted. Simulations predict that increasing the valence band offset increases the conductivity of the inversion layer.