TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of ALD-Al2O3 Passivated Silicon Quantum Dot Superlattices on p/i/n+ Solar Cells
AU - Rahman, Mohammad Maksudur
AU - Tsai, Yi Chia
AU - Lee, Ming Yi
AU - Higo, Akio
AU - Li, Yiming
AU - Hoshi, Yusuke
AU - Usami, Noritaka
AU - Samukawa, Seiji
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received February 20, 2017; revised April 18, 2017; accepted May 5, 2017. Date of publication May 30, 2017; date of current version June 19, 2017. The work of Y.-C. Tsai, M.-Y. Lee, and Y. Li was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), under Contract MOST-105-2221-E-009-132 and Contract MOST-105-2218-E-009-019.The review of this paper was arranged by Editor A. G. Aberle. (Corresponding authors: Seiji Samukawa; Yiming Li; and Mohammad Maksudur Rahman.) M. M. Rahman is with the Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi 980–8577, Japan (e-mail:likhon_phy@yahoo.com).
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Prof. M. Sugiyama and Prof. Y. Nakano from the University of Tokyo for their support in providing us with instrumental facilities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 1963-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2017/7
Y1 - 2017/7
N2 - The photovoltaic (PV) nature of the silicon (Si) quantum dot super lattice (QDSL) is studied with an atomiclayer-deposited aluminum oxide film (ALD-Al2O3) and a conventional sputtered-grown amorphous silicon carbide film (a-SiC). The QDSL structures act as an intermediate layer in a p/i/n+ Si solar cell. The QDSL consists of 4-nm Si on 2-nm SiC nanodisks (NDs) arrayed in an ALD-Al2O3 and a-SiC passivation matrix. Formation of Si-NDs was confirmed by bright field scanning transmission electron microscope. A significant PV response in generating a high photocurrent density Jsc of 30.15mA/cm2open circuit voltage Voc of 0.50 V, fill factor FF of 0.61, and efficiency η of 9.12% was observed in ALD-Al2O3/QDSL solar cell with respect to a-SiC/QDSL solar cell with Jsc of 26.94 mA/cm2, Voc of 0.50 V, FF of 0.47, and ? of 6.42%. A wide range of photo-carrier transports by the ALD-Al2O3/QDSL structure is possible in the external quantum efficiency spectra with respect to a-SiC/QDSL solar cell. The enhanced PV performance of the QD solar cells was clarified in terms of simulating the absorption contributions for all possible transitions in the nanostructure with different passivation films.
AB - The photovoltaic (PV) nature of the silicon (Si) quantum dot super lattice (QDSL) is studied with an atomiclayer-deposited aluminum oxide film (ALD-Al2O3) and a conventional sputtered-grown amorphous silicon carbide film (a-SiC). The QDSL structures act as an intermediate layer in a p/i/n+ Si solar cell. The QDSL consists of 4-nm Si on 2-nm SiC nanodisks (NDs) arrayed in an ALD-Al2O3 and a-SiC passivation matrix. Formation of Si-NDs was confirmed by bright field scanning transmission electron microscope. A significant PV response in generating a high photocurrent density Jsc of 30.15mA/cm2open circuit voltage Voc of 0.50 V, fill factor FF of 0.61, and efficiency η of 9.12% was observed in ALD-Al2O3/QDSL solar cell with respect to a-SiC/QDSL solar cell with Jsc of 26.94 mA/cm2, Voc of 0.50 V, FF of 0.47, and ? of 6.42%. A wide range of photo-carrier transports by the ALD-Al2O3/QDSL structure is possible in the external quantum efficiency spectra with respect to a-SiC/QDSL solar cell. The enhanced PV performance of the QD solar cells was clarified in terms of simulating the absorption contributions for all possible transitions in the nanostructure with different passivation films.
KW - Passivation
KW - Si/SiC heterostructure
KW - silicon quantum dot super lattice (Si QDSL)
KW - solar cell
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U2 - 10.1109/TED.2017.2704294
DO - 10.1109/TED.2017.2704294
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85028306896
VL - 64
SP - 2886
EP - 2892
JO - IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
JF - IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
SN - 0018-9383
IS - 7
M1 - 7935526
ER -