Optimizing Bifacial Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells for High-Latitudes

• Published in: 2019 International Conference on Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices (NUSOD) pp. 59 - 60
• Main Authors: Tonita, Erin M., Lewis, Amanda R., Valdivia, Christopher E., Hinzer, Karin
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-07-2019
• Subjects: Amorphous silicon; bifacial illumination; bifacial solar cells; Heterojunctions; high-latitude optoelectronic modelling; Lighting; Mathematical model; Photovoltaic cells; silicon heterojunction solar cells; Surface treatment
• ISBN: 1728116465; 9781728116464
• ISSN: 2158-3234
• DOI: 10.1109/NUSOD.2019.8806860

Two-dimensional optoelectronic modelling of bifacial silicon heterojunction solar cells is completed in Synopsys TCAD Sentaurus to optimize and characterize cell performance for regions of high latitude where cells experience high average air mass and increased angles of incidence. Cell performance under bifacial illumination conditions representative of the Canadian High Arctic, with independent spectra illuminating the front and rear faces of the cell, is studied. The baseline cell structure has an efficiency of 20.4% and 19.3% under front-face illumination with AM1.5G and AM3.0G, respectively. Improvements will be made through the addition of surface texturing and the optimization of doping, layer thicknesses, and antireflection coatings.