Amorphous-Silicon / Polymer Solar Cells and Key Design Rules for Hybrid Solar Cells

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279419· OSTI ID:943995

Gowrishankar, V; Scully, S R; McGehee, M D; Wang, Q; Branz, H

Hybrid solar cells combine the advantages of organic and inorganic materials. We report on the fabrication and performance of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H)/poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and a-Si:H/poly(2-methoxy-5-(2{prime}-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene) (MEH-PPV) solar cells. The a-Si:H/P3HT system is found to be almost as efficient as titania/P3HT systems. However, the a-Si:H/MEH-PPV system exhibits poorer efficiency vis-a-vis a-Si:H/P3HT and titania/MEH-PPV. This is hypothesized to be due to enhanced energy transfer from MEH-PPV to a-Si:H, coupled with inefficient backward hole transfer, due to the small offset between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of MEH-PPV and the valence band edge of a-Si:H, and the extended valence bandtail states in a-Si:H.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-99GO10337
• OSTI ID: 943995
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
DESIGN
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY CONVERSION
ENERGY TRANSFER
FABRICATION
PERFORMANCE
SILICON
SOLAR CELLS
Silicon Materials and Devices
Solar Energy - Photovoltaics
VALENCE