Browsing by Author "Pen, Huai-Te"

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11%-Efficiency Hybrid Organic/Silicon-Nanowire Heterojunction Solar Cell with an Intermediate 1,1-bis[(di-4-tolylamino)phenyl]cyclohexane Layer
(2013)
Tsai, Chia-Ying
;
Chen, Po-Han
;
Huang, Yang-Yue
;
Pen, Huai-Te
;
Yu, Peichen
Hybrid organic-inorganic heterojunction solar cells based on silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are promising candidates for next-generation photovoltaics owing to potentials for low fabrication cost and high efficiency. The SiNW array, fabricated by a simple metal-assisted wet chemical etching method, produces a large surface-area-to-volume ratio, hence allowing efficient light harvesting and charge collection via the formation of a core-sheath p-n junction. However, previously reported power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) are approximately capped at 10%, which is largely depicted by the interface defect densities that limit the open-circuit voltage (V-oc) and fill factor (FF). In this work, we introduce a solution-processed, intermediate 1,1-bis[(di-4-tolylamino)phenyl]cyclohexane (TAPC) layer to mitigate the interface recombination loss for hybrid heterojunction solar cells consisted of SiNWs and conjugate polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxy-thiophene): poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). A record PCE of 11.0% is achieved in contrast to 9.6% from a reference counterpart without TAPC, which represents an enhancement factor of 14.2% ascribed to noticeable improvement in the V-oc and FF. The result is further supported by examining indicators for the interface quality via a suppressed dark saturation current and an enhanced minority carrier lifetime which exhibits an increase from 84 mu sec without TAPC to 87 mu sec with TAPC.
Projected Efficiency of Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Tandem Solar Cells
(2013)
Chen, Po-Han
;
Huang, Yang-Yue
;
Pen, Huai-Te
;
Lai, Yi-Chun
;
Tsai, Chia-Ying
We propose a series-connected hybrid tandem solar cell which consists of an organic solar cell (P3HT/PCBM) as the top cell and an organic/crystalline silicon hybrid solar cell (PEDOT:PSS/c-Si nanowires) as the bottom cell. Based on the device structure, the organic materials can be directly spun-cast onto the inorganic silicon substrate with thermally evaporated metal contacts, making solution-based processes possible for rapid and low-cost production. With a proper design, the hybrid device architecture can achieve a high open-circuit voltage and junction-matched photocurrent, offering a promising approach for next-generation high-efficiency photovoltaics. In this work, we established a device model to investigate the photovoltaic characteristics of the proposed hybrid tandem solar cells by combining the organic and hybrid silicon solar cells with a hypothetic recombination layer (RL). First, the model of single junction solar cells is fitted to the current-voltage curve of fabricated devices. Next, we investigate the properties of the RL between the sub-cells and observe strong correlations with the photovoltaic performance of tandem cells. In our preliminary model, we have realized a cell with an open-circuit voltage (Voc), short-circuit current (Jsc), fill-factor (FF) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.093 V, 9.715 mAkm2, 43.725 % and 4.644 %, respectively. We will further tailor the properties of the RL, the active-layer thickness of sub-cells, as well as the band alignment, in order to achieve practical device designs. Currently, the characteristics of real hybrid tandem solar cells remain significantly lower than the simulation result. The reason of such limited cell performance is the poor interfacial contact, which makes it difficult to provide efficient recombination and transport for electrons and holes generated from sub-cells. A number of challenging issues, including interface physics and device design will be discussed.