abstract: Silicon photonic technology continues to dominate the solar industry driven by steady improvement in device and module efficiencies. Currently, the world record conversion efficiency (~26.6%) for single junction silicon solar cell technologies is held by silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and crystalline silicon (c-Si). These solar cells utilize the concept of carrier selective contacts to improve device efficiencies. A carrier selective contact is designed to optimize the collection of majority carriers while blocking the collection of minority carriers. In the case of SHJ cells, a thin intrinsic a-Si:H layer provides crucial passivation between doped a-Si:H and the c-Si absorber that is required to create a high efficiency cell. There has been much debate regarding the role of the intrinsic a-Si:H passivation layer on the transport of photogenerated carriers, and its role in optimizing device performance. In this work, a multiscale model is presented which utilizes different simulation methodologies to study interfacial transport across the intrinsic a-Si:H/c-Si heterointerface and through the a-Si:H passivation layer. In particular, an ensemble Monte Carlo simulator was developed to study high field behavior of photogenerated carriers at the intrinsic a-Si:H/c-Si heterointerface, a kinetic Monte Carlo program was used to study transport of photogenerated carriers across the intrinsic a-Si:H passivation layer, and a drift-diffusion model was developed to model the behavior in the quasi-neutral regions of the solar cell. This work reports de-coupled and self-consistent simulations to fully understand the role and effect of transport across the a-Si:H passivation layer in silicon heterojunction solar cells, and relates this to overall solar cell device performance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2019
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:asu.edu/item:54888 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Contributors | Muralidharan, Pradyumna (Author), Goodnick, Stephen M (Advisor), Vasileska, Dragica (Advisor), Honsberg, Christiana (Committee member), Ringhofer, Christian (Committee member), Arizona State University (Publisher) |
| Source Sets | Arizona State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Dissertation |
| Format | 177 pages |
| Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
Page generated in 0.0023 seconds