Comparison of nanocrystalline silicon and nanocrystalline silicon carbide window layers

The higher electric and optical properties of nanomaterials give an opportunity for solar cells to get better efficiencies. nanocrystalline hydrogenated silicon (nc-Si: H) and nanocrystalline silicon carbide (nc-SiC: H) thin films offer a new range of specialized solar photovoltaic (PV) nanostructured materials. Because of their wide band gap nature, they are utilised as a window layer for thin-film a-Si:H-based solar cells. The question whether nanocrystalline hydrogenated silicon (ncSi:H) or nanocrystalline silicon carbide (nc-SiC:H) is more adapted for window layer in amorphous silicon solar cells, was investigated in this work using AMPS-1D simulator. Our simulations agreed well with experiments and showed that incorporating a boron doped nanocrystalline silicon carbide window layer instead of nanocrystalline silicon enhances the device performances. Moreover, the use of this material in pin-junction produced photovoltaic cell with efficiency of 9.2%, with VOC = 0.867V, JSC = 14.7 mA/cm2 and FF = 72.4%.