Study and Simulation of the Heterojunction Thin Film Solar Cell a-Si( n )/a-Si( i )/c-Si( p )/a-Si( i )/a-Si( p )

In this article, we present a study based on numerical simulation of the electrical characteristics of a thin-film heterojunction solar cell (a-Si( n )/a-Si( i )/c-Si( p )/a-Si( i )/a-Si( p )), using the automat for simulation of hetero-structures (AFORS-Het) software. This cell is composed of four main layers of silicon (Si): (i) 5 nm amorphous silicon doped n , (ii) 100 μ m crystalline silicon (substrate) doped p , (iii) 5 nm amorphous silicon doped p , and (iv) 3 nm amorphous silicon intrinsic. This cell has a front and rear metal contact of aluminum and zinc oxide (ZnO) front layer transparent conductive oxide of 80 nm thickness. The simulations were performed at conditions of “One Sun” irradiation with air mass 1.5 (AM1.5), and under absolute temperature T = 300 K. The simulation results have shown a high electrical conversion efficiency of about 30.29% and high values of open circuit voltage V oc = 779 mV. This study has also shown that the studied cell has good quality light absorption on a very broad spectrum.