Electron Affinity and Bandgap Optimization of Zinc Oxide for Improved Performance of ZnO/Si Heterojunction Solar Cell Using PC1D Simulations

Babar Hussain; Aasma Aslam; Taj M Khan; Michael Creighton; Bahman Zohuri

doi:10.3390/electronics8020238

journal article Open Access Feb 20, 2019

Electron Affinity and Bandgap Optimization of Zinc Oxide for Improved Performance of ZnO/Si Heterojunction Solar Cell Using PC1D Simulations

Babar Hussain Aasma Aslam Taj M Khan Michael Creighton Bahman Zohuri

Electronics Vol. 8 No. 2 pp. 238 · MDPI AG

View at Publisher Save 10.3390/electronics8020238

Abstract

For further uptake in the solar cell industry, n-ZnO/p-Si single heterojunction solar cell has attracted much attention of the research community in recent years. This paper reports the influence of bandgap and/or electron affinity tuning of zinc oxide on the performance of n-ZnO/p-Si single heterojunction photovoltaic cell using PC1D simulations. The simulation results reveal that the open circuit voltage and fill factor can be improved significantly by optimizing valence-band and conduction-band off-sets by engineering the bandgap and electron affinity of zinc oxide. An overall conversion efficiency of more than 20.3% can be achieved without additional cost or any change in device structure. It has been found that the improvement in efficiency is mainly due to reduction in conduction band offset that has a significant influence on minority carrier current.

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Metrics

107

Citations

29

References

Details

Published: Feb 20, 2019
Vol/Issue: 8(2)
Pages: 238
License: View

Authors

B

Babar Hussain

Intel Corporation, Rio Rancho, NM 87124, USA

A

Aasma Aslam

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA

T

Taj M Khan

School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; National Institute of Lasers and Optronics, Islamabad 45650, Pakistan

M

Michael Creighton

Intel Corporation, Rio Rancho, NM 87124, USA

B

Bahman Zohuri

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA

Cite This Article

Babar Hussain, Aasma Aslam, Taj M Khan, et al. (2019). Electron Affinity and Bandgap Optimization of Zinc Oxide for Improved Performance of ZnO/Si Heterojunction Solar Cell Using PC1D Simulations. Electronics, 8(2), 238. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8020238

Electron Affinity and Bandgap Optimization of Zinc Oxide for Improved Performance of ZnO/Si Heterojunction Solar Cell Using PC1D Simulations

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