Quantum size effects in amorphous Si superlattice solar cells

Amorphous silicon/alloy superlattices provide advantages in solar cell design, such as (a) effective band gap widening (b) effective mass separation (c) increased open-circuit voltage. The latter increases via Fermi level control, due to p-doping of potential barriers, pushing EF towards the valence bands, with simultaneous widening of the effective band gap, thus leading to potentially higher collection incident wavelengths. The density of gap states in the heavily doped layer is modeled as an exponential whose parameter kT* can be varied by the doping concentrations, while its activation energy saturates at some value. This communication provides (i) a general formulation of the problem at finite temperatures as well as numerical results for specific realizable contacts (ii) detailed treatment of gap states (iii) the neutrality condition (iv) a relation between Fermi level position and open-circuit voltage in the nitride region (superlattice p-region). For a p-(a-SiN: H/a-Si: H)-i (a-Si: H)-n (a-Si: H) sample, we compute the Fermi level position relative to the a-Si: H valence band edge. For low and wide gap thin layers of the order of 2.5–3.5nm, open-circuit voltage values are predicted in excess of 1.05V, and efficiencies are predicted in excess of 12%.