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Performance improvement for epitaxially grown SiGe on Si solar cell by optimizing the back surface field
Author(s) -
Li Dun,
Zhao Xin,
Wang Li,
Conrad Brianna,
Soeriyadi Anastasia,
Lochtefeld Anthony,
Gerger Andrew,
Barnett Allen,
PerezWurfl Ivan
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
physica status solidi (rrl) – rapid research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.786
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1862-6270
pISSN - 1862-6254
DOI - 10.1002/pssr.201600231
Subject(s) - solar cell , materials science , epitaxy , optoelectronics , silicon , energy conversion efficiency , solar cell efficiency , open circuit voltage , silicon solar cell , layer (electronics) , nanotechnology , voltage , electrical engineering , engineering
This letter reports on the performance improvement of an epitaxially grown SiGe on Si solar cell by optimizing the back surface field (BSF). First, a Si 0.18 Ge 0.82 on silicon (Si) solar cell was fabricated with a 0.25 μm BSF layer. A 25 mV open‐circuit voltage ( V OC ) improvement was observed on this BSF solar cell compared with the reference solar cell without BSF layer. Then, a Si 0.18 Ge 0.82 on Si solar cell with double BSF layers was designed and fabricated. The measured efficiency of this solar cell is 3.4% when filtered by a GaAs 0.79 P 0.21 top cell. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the 3.4% efficiency reported here is the highest efficiency for SiGe on Si solar cells when filtered by a GaAs 0.79 P 0.21 top cell. The previous best reported efficiency for high Ge composition SiGe on Si solar cell was only 1.7% when filtered by a GaAs 0.79 P 0.21 top cell.