A Theoretical Study on the Performance of SnO2/SiO2/n-Si Solar Cells

Abstract

The performance of SnO2/SiO2/n-Si solar cells was studied by considering various transport mechanisms including minority-carrier diffusion, carrier recombination, and tunneling through insulating layer. The tunneling current through the SiO2 layer was obtained by employing the Airy-wavefunction approach. The efficiency was calculated to determine the performance of the cells under AM1 illumination for different values of insulating layer thickness, interface state density, hole life-time, doping density of silicon substrate, and cell thickness. It was shown that the efficiency increases as the insulating layer becomes thinner due to the decrease of short-circuit current. It was also shown that the efficiency increases as the doping density increases up to 6x1022/m3 and it then decreases for higher doping densities. As the interface state density decreases, the efficiency becomes higher. In addition, the increases in the hole lifetime and cell thickness enhance the efficiency of the solar cell.