ZHANG Ze-lin, ZHAO Ke, CUI Xian, YAO You-wei, WEI Jin-quan. A crystalline Si solar cell using a carbon nanotube thin film as the back electrode. New Carbon Mater., 2019, 34(3): 302-306.
Citation: ZHANG Ze-lin, ZHAO Ke, CUI Xian, YAO You-wei, WEI Jin-quan. A crystalline Si solar cell using a carbon nanotube thin film as the back electrode. New Carbon Mater., 2019, 34(3): 302-306.

A crystalline Si solar cell using a carbon nanotube thin film as the back electrode

Funds:  Shenzhen Jiawei Photovol taic Lighting Co., Ltd. (20142001042).
  • Received Date: 2019-01-03
  • Accepted Date: 2019-06-27
  • Rev Recd Date: 2019-04-05
  • Publish Date: 2019-06-28
  • Due to their outstanding charge collecting and transport ability, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used as electrode materials in solar cells. Here, we replaced the aluminum back electrode in a crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell with a CNT thin film to form a c-Si/CNT film solar cell. The c-Si/CNT solar cell had a high short-circuit current density of 35.5 mA cm-2, which is higher than that using aluminum as the back electrode, indicating that CNTs can be used as hole transport materials in silicon-based solar cells. The power conversion efficiency of the c-Si/CNT solar cell was increased from 7.1% to 10.9% by dropping a few drops of a dilute HF solution (5 wt%) at the interface of the c-Si and the CNT film. This is because HF etches away the oxide layer on the c-Si surface, increases the interfacial contact area between the CNT film and the c-Si and decreases the recombination rate of electron/hole pairs.
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