In recent years, engineers around the world have been developing innovative technologies to generate and store energy more sustainably. These technologies include solar or photovoltaic cells, electrical devices that can convert light from the sun into electricity.
Two dependable types of solar cells are silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells and perovskite or SHJ tandem solar cells. Both of these classes of solar cells are made using hydrogenated silicon (aβSi:H), the non-crystalline form of silicon. Which is also commonly used to make thin film transistors, batteries and LCD displays.
AβSi: H has been used to make photovoltaics for many years, due to its low poor density, tunable conductance, and other advantages. Because the advantages of this material depend heavily on the configuration of hydrogen and silicon in 3D space.
Engineers must be able to control the microscopic structure of materials with a high degree of accuracy to create high-performing devices.
Previously materials scientists have tried to impregnate amorphous silicon using the metalloid chemical element boron to use light from the Sun more efficiently. However, till now most of them have not yielded the right results.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Zhongwei New Energy, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have recently introduced a new strategy that can significantly improve the efficiency of Si: H thin films using boron. can. This strategy introduced in the study emphasizes the lightening of films.
Wenzhou Liu pointed out that due to the extremely low effective doping efficiency of trivalent boron in shapeless tetravalent silicon, the lightweight use of SHJ devices is limited by their deposition factors (FFs).
The researchers found that thin films of boron-doped a-Si:H could boost energy even in low light by absorbing light.
In their experiments, Liu and his colleagues found that it could pass light and block the weakly bonded hydrogen atoms into a-Si: H. This in turn activates boron doping, enhancing the materialβs underutilized capabilities.
The effect is reversed, the researchers reported, and the team found that once light does not reach the solar cell, the materialβs conductivity in the dark automatically decreases over time.
Liu and his colleagues tested the effectiveness of their strategy by using it to increase the efficiency of the SHJ solar cell. They then assessed the performance of their solar cells at a standard temperature of 25 Β°C using a solar lighting simulator.
Overall, the solar cells they doped or mixed using their method demonstrated a remarkable proven total-area power conversion efficiency of 25.18 percent with an FF of 85.42 percent on a 244.63 square centimeter wafer. These results are highly promising and could be further improved in the next studies, he said.
Recent work by this team of researchers could have important implications for the development of SHJ cells and silicon-based photovoltaics. In the future the strategy they propose may be used to enhance the light depositing properties of both existing and newly developed solar technologies. This research is published in Nature Energy.
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