Organic–inorganic halide perovskite/crystalline silicon four-terminal tandem solar cells

Abstract

Tandem solar cells constructed from a crystalline silicon (c-Si) bottom cell and a low-cost top cell offer a promising way to ensure long-term price reductions of photovoltaic modules. We present a four-terminal tandem solar cell consisting of a methyl ammonium lead triiodide (CH3NH3PbI3) top cell and a c-Si heterojunction bottom cell. The CH3NH3PbI3 top cell exhibits broad-band transparency owing to its design free of metallic components and yields a transmittance of >55% in the near-infrared spectral region. This allows the generation of a short-circuit current density of 13.7 mA cm(-2) in the bottom cell. The four-terminal tandem solar cell yields an efficiency of 13.4% (top cell: 6.2%, bottom cell: 7.2%), which is a gain of 1.8%abs with respect to the reference single-junction CH3NH3PbI3 solar cell with metal back contact. We employ the four-terminal tandem solar cell for a detailed investigation of the optical losses and to derive guidelines for further efficiency improvements. Based on a power loss analysis, we estimate that tandem efficiencies of ∼28% are attainable using an optically optimized system based on current technology, whereas a fully optimized, ultimate device with matched current could yield up to 31.6%.

Transparent Electrodes for Efficient Optoelectronics

“…Current losses linked to parasitic absorption in the front ITO in SHJ cells or in the front FTO in perovskite-SHJ tandem cells have been analyzed in ref. [140] and ref. [141], respectively.…”

Bifacial Si heterojunction-perovskite organic-inorganic tandem to produce highly efficient (ηT* ∼ 33%) solar cell

“…Using a four terminal configuration, Bailie et al 20 obtained a 17% and 18.6% efficient tandem cell with mc-Si ( ) and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS, ) bottom cells, respectively. Similarly, Löper et al 21 obtained a 13.4% efficient tandem cell with presumably a highly efficient a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction bottom cell using the same configuration and Mailoa et al 22 obtained a 13.7% efficient cell with c-Si bottom cell using the two terminal configuration. These studies indicate that a poor performing top cell can significantly limit the performance of these traditional tandem cell designs.…”

“…Therefore, while with careful layer optimization, it is possible to obtain modest efficiency gains through traditional tandem configurations, but it may not be cost effective. Note that, a part of the efficiency gain arises from not having ITO between the two sub-cells, which reduces parasitic absorption 21 , and offers better impedance matching for light between the top and the bottom cells.…”

Efficient Semitransparent Perovskite Solar Cells Using a Transparent Silver Electrode and Four-Terminal Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Device Exploration

“…For the four-terminal perovskite/ Si devices assembled by a perovskite top cell and Si bottom cell, many efforts were dedicated to search for an appropriate transparent electrode to replace the opaque metal rear contact normally used in PSCs. In most reports [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], the sputtered transparent-conductive-oxide (especially ITO) rear electrode has been commonly used, and the record overall efficiency of 26.4% has been achieved in the four-terminal devices with the perovskite top cell using the ITO/Au-finger electrode [18]. However, the sputtered ITO without postannealing (>200°C) treatment usually shows the suboptimal conductivity, and the high kinetic energy of sputtered particles tends to damage the underlying spiro-OMeTAD or fullerene layers [19]; thus, it is essential to increase the thickness (or add the finger electrodes) to compensate the resistive loss and deposit the buffer layer to protect the organic charge transport layers [18,20].…”

“…Simultaneously, the Si solar cells have dominated the photovoltaic markets for a long time, and the PCE record of the single-junction Si solar cell has reached 26.6% [8], but the relatively high manufactur-ing cost limits their wider applications. In recent years, the perovskite/Si tandem solar cells [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] have attracted increasing interest as they possess great commercial possibility in fabricating high-performance solar cells via the cost-effective pathway.…”