The Simultaneous Impacts of the p nc-SiOx:H Window Layer Band Gap and the Back Reflection on the Performances of a-Si:H Based Solar Cells

Authors Abbas Belfar, Mohammed Belmekki, Ferroudja Hammour, Hocine Ait-Kaci
Affiliations

Laboratory of Plasma Physics, Conductor Materials and their Applications, Faculty of Physics, Oran University of Sciences and Technology Mohamed Boudiaf USTO-MB, BP1505 Oran, Algeria

Е-mail abbasbelfar@gmail.com
Issue Volume 11, Year 2019, Number 2
Dates Received 20 December 2018; revised manuscript received 08 April 2019; published online 15 April 2019
Citation Abbas Belfar, Mohammed Belmekki, Ferroudja Hammour, Hocine Ait-Kaci, et al., J. Nano- Electron. Phys. 11 No 2, 02025 (2019)
DOI https://doi.org/10.21272/jnep.11(2).02025
PACS Number(s) 73.40.Lq, 78.20.Bh
Keywords Solar cell (51) , Hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon oxide, Back reflection, Window layer band gap.
Annotation

In this study we have presented an investigation, by using numerical simulation, the simultaneous impacts of the p nc-SiOx:H window layer band gap (Eg) and the back reflection (RB) on the photovoltaic performances of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells. For simulation, we have used the AMPS-1D (One Dimensional Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic structures) code. The modeling was carried out on two configurations of the studied cell, one without rear reflector (RB = 0) and the other with rear reflector (RB = 0.8). The simulated results showed that the best output parameters of the cell were obtained in the case of the structure with rear reflector and when the value of the p-window layer band gap lies in the range from 2.05 eV to 2.10 eV. On the one hand, the values of the band diagram discontinuities on the conduction band levels ΔEC1 and ΔEC2 and on the valence band levels ΔEV1 (interface between the window layer and the buffer layer) and ΔEV2 (interface between the buffer layer and the active layer) are investigated to better understand the efficiency (Eff) variations as a function of the window layer Eg. On the other hand, it is also obtained that the spectral response (SR) is very sensitive to the window layer band gap variations in the wavelength range from 0.35 to 0.55 mm for both cases. However, the spectral response decreases with the increase of Eg. Finally, the solar cell spectral response has improved in the wavelength range from 0.55 to 0.7 mm, and the best efficiency value (Eff = 11.43 %) was obtained in the case of the structure with rear reflector.

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