Issue 9, 2018

Large area efficient interface layer free monolithic perovskite/homo-junction-silicon tandem solar cell with over 20% efficiency

Abstract

Monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells show great promise for further efficiency enhancement for current silicon photovoltaic technology. In general, an interface (tunnelling or recombination) layer is usually required for electrical contact between the top and the bottom cells, which incurs higher fabrication costs and parasitic absorption. Most of the monolithic perovskite/Si tandem cells demonstrated use a hetero-junction silicon (Si) solar cell as the bottom cell, on small areas only. This work is the first to successfully integrate a low temperature processed (≤150 °C) planar CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite solar cell on a homo-junction silicon solar cell to achieve a monolithic tandem without the use of an additional interface layer on large areas (4 and 16 cm2). Solution processed SnO2 has been effective in providing dual functions in the monolithic tandem, serving as an ETL for the perovskite cell and as a recombination contact with the n-type silicon homo-junction solar cell that has a boron doped p-type (p++) front emitter. The SnO2/p++ Si interface is characterised in this work and the dominant transport mechanism is simulated using Sentaurus technology computer-aided design (TCAD) modelling. The champion device on 4 cm2 achieves a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 21.0% under reverse-scanning with a VOC of 1.68 V, a JSC of 16.1 mA cm−2 and a high FF of 78% yielding a steady-state efficiency of 20.5%. As our monolithic tandem device does not rely on the SnO2 for lateral conduction, which is managed by the p++ emitter, up scaling to large areas becomes relatively straightforward. On a large area of 16 cm2, a reverse scan PCE of 17.6% and a steady-state PCE of 17.1% are achieved. To our knowledge, these are the most efficient perovskite/homo-junction-silicon tandem solar cells that are larger than 1 cm2. Most importantly, our results demonstrate for the first time that monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells can be achieved with excellent performance without the need for an additional interface layer. This work is relevant to the commercialisation of efficient large-area perovskite/homo-junction silicon tandem solar cells.

Graphical abstract: Large area efficient interface layer free monolithic perovskite/homo-junction-silicon tandem solar cell with over 20% efficiency

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Mar 2018
Accepted
13 Jun 2018
First published
25 Jun 2018
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Environ. Sci., 2018,11, 2432-2443

Large area efficient interface layer free monolithic perovskite/homo-junction-silicon tandem solar cell with over 20% efficiency

J. Zheng, C. F. J. Lau, H. Mehrvarz, F. Ma, Y. Jiang, X. Deng, A. Soeriyadi, J. Kim, M. Zhang, L. Hu, X. Cui, D. S. Lee, J. Bing, Y. Cho, C. Chen, M. A. Green, S. Huang and A. W. Y. Ho-Baillie, Energy Environ. Sci., 2018, 11, 2432 DOI: 10.1039/C8EE00689J

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