Role of the work function of transparent conductive oxide on the performance of amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells studied by computer simulation

The role of the work function of transparent conductive oxide (W-TCO) on the performance of amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells was investigated in detail with other various parameters by utilizing AFORS-HET software as a numerical computer simulation tool. The results for SHJ solar cells based on p-type and n-type substrates were demonstrated and analyzed comparatively with or without the insertion of the intrinsic amorphous silicon layer between the doped amorphous emitter and the crystalline base. It was indicated that there was an optimized threshold thickness of the emitter for the solar cells to obtain the best performance for any given W-TCO and the doping concentration of the emitter. Thus, design criteria of TCO/emitter for the practical SHJ solar cells were provided.