Electrolyte-Induced Inversion Layer Schottky Junction Solar Cells

Abstract

A new type of crystalline silicon solar cell is described. Superficially similar to a photoelectrochemical cell a liquid electrolyte creates a depletion (inversion) layer in an n-type silicon wafer, however no regenerative redox couple is present to ferry charge between the silicon and a counter electrode. Instead holes trapped in the electrolyte-induced inversion layer diffuse along the layer until they come to widely spaced grid lines, where they are extracted. The grid lines consist of a single-walled carbon nanotube film etched to cover only a fraction of the n-Si surface. Modeling and simulation shows the inversion layer to be a natural consequence of the device electrostatics. With electronic gating, recently demonstrated to boost the efficiency in related devices, the cell achieves a power conversion efficiency of 12%, exceeding the efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells.

Carbon nanotubes for organic/inorganic hybrid solar cells

“…nanometer thin SiOx insulator between the Si and metal, minority charge carriers will be transported through the insulating layer by CNT fibers [119]. By applying a series of doping and gating methods such as SOCl 2 treatment [116], ionic liquid electrolyte infiltration and electronic gating [120,121] as well as nitric acid doping [122], the power conversion efficiencies of the CNT-Si cells have been continuously pushed from initially about 1.3% to 13.8% (within the last several years.…”

TiO2-Coated Carbon Nanotube-Silicon Solar Cells with Efficiency of 15%

“…silicon) to create new architectures that have the potential of simplifying fabrication processes and lowering cost. To this end, researchers have explored various candidates, particularly transparent conductive films of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene and semiconducting polymers that can be conveniently deposited on commercial Si wafers to make efficient solar cells101112131415161718. During the past years, considerable progresses have been achieved in this area and power conversion efficiencies have been steadily enhanced to about 8% for graphene-Si17 and 13.8% for acid-doped CNT-Si cells13.…”

Investigation of single field-effect surface passivation by constructing electrolyte/Si solar cell structure

“…The application of higher positive V g at the KCl electrolyte leads to a change of conductivity type of emitter's surface layer. At this stage, the change of emitter layer experienced the opposite situation relative to negative V g and the electron in emitter is moved to the surface if positive V g reaches a certain level [15,19,20]. Positive gate voltages increase the electron concentration in the emitter surface layer, and obtain an accumulation layer with excess electrons accumulating.…”