10.4229/25thEUPVSEC2010-2DV.1.32
Tüzün, Ö.
Metin, B.
Oktik, S.
Electrical Analysis and Numerical Simulation of Porous Silicon Solar Cells
WIP-Munich
2010
Wafer-Based Silicon Solar Cells and Materials Technology
Mono- and Multicrystalline Silicon Materials and Cells
2010-10-28
eng
Article
3-936338-26-4
4 pages
1165 kb
application/pdf
25th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition / 5th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 6-10 September 2010, Valencia, Spain; 2534-2537
The high refractive index of crystalline silicon at solar wavelengths (approximately 3.5) creates large
reflection losses. Silicon solar cells with porous silicon layer are a promising as one of high efficiency and low cost
structure. Porous silicon exhibits a reflective index close to 1.7-2.1 and plays a significant role on photovoltaic
performance by enhancing the light absorption. A new approach for hybrid metal-insulator-semiconductor Si solar
cells is adopted by Institute of Fundamental Problems for High Technology, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In this
technique, the porous silicon layers are formed on both sides of single crystal wafers by chemical etching before an
improved MIS cell preparation process.
In this work, micro structure of porous silicon was investigated by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM). It
is found that the peak to valley roughness of the porous silicon surface is 661nm. The spectral response and currentvoltage
(I-V) characteristics of the silicon solar cells with porous layers are reported. The additional layer of porous
silicon formed on the cell surface provides spectral extension of the PV efficiency into UV and NIR regions. Using
this technique, the solar cells with efficiencies above 15% have been obtained under AM1.5 condition (under 100
mW/cm2 illumination at 25°C). The SCAPS-1D computer program is applied to calculate the correlation between
porous silicon layers and electrical parameters of the solar cell.