Efficiency enhancement of silicon solar cells by silicon quantum dots embedded in ZnO films as down-shifting coating
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Efficiency enhancement of silicon solar cells by silicon quantum dots embedded in ZnO films as down-shifting coating H. J. Higuera-Valenzuela1, A. Ramos-Carrazco2,* , R. Garcı´a-Gutierrez2, F. Romo-Garcı´a3, R. Rangel4, O. E. Contreras5, and D. Berman-Mendoza2 1
Ingeniería Biomédica, Universidad Estatal de Sonora, C.P. 83100 Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico Departamento de Investigación en Física, Universidad de Sonora, C.P. 83000, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico 3 Departamento de Física, Matemáticas e Ingeniería, Universidad de Sonora, Navojoa, Sonora, Mexico 4 Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Michoacán, Mexico 5 Centro de Nanociencias y Nanotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, C.P. 22800 Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico 2
Received: 31 July 2020
ABSTRACT
Accepted: 30 September 2020
In the present work, the incorporation of silicon quantum dots (SiQDs) in zinc oxide (ZnO) films to develop coatings that improve the efficiency of silicon solar cells is reported. The down-shifting conversion of the SiQDs was used to enhance the efficiency of a photovoltaic device. The room temperature spectrum centered at 510 nm (2.43 eV) for the SiQDs is shown. The transmittance of the SiQDs-ZnO samples was measured and the band gap (Eg) was estimated through Tauc’s method. An increase on the band gap from 3.35 to 3.55 eV as function of the incorporation of SiQDs was obtained. The influence of the SiQDs in the oxide crystallinity of the wurtzite structure was studied through the X-ray diffraction. To determine the current increase under a standard test condition (STC) was achieved and an overall efficiency of 17.58% was obtained using a SiQDs-ZnO coating on silicon solar cells. The synergistic effect of SiQDs addition to ZnO films was demonstrated.
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Springer Science+Business
Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
1 Introduction ZnO-based devices have attracted attention due to their high performance as well as low cost. It is also environmentally stable and optically transparent [1]. As a result, this oxide has found potential applications in electronics, including light-emitting diodes
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-04576-0
[2], laser diodes [3], acoustic-optical sensors [4], and memory devices [5]. Recently, the research about ZnO has been focused to sustainable energy applications. In solar cells, this oxide has been applied in heterojunctions and antireflection coatings (ARC) [6]. Also, the development of ZnO layers for the
J Mater Sci: Mater Electron
substitution of TiO2 semiconductor in dye solar cells has been reported [7]. Despite its outstanding and well-studied capabilities, the photovoltaic devices based on ZnO have not been fully exploited. However, in recent years, the applications of doped ZnO or as a matrix of nanostructured materials have increased notably due to the improvement of its radiative properties. Considering remarkable reports regarding ZnO in recent years, we can mention th
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