Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. (2022) 231: 2933-2939
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00544-3

Regular Article

Ultrathin transparent metal capping layer on metal oxide carrier-selective contacts for Si solar cells

¹ Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Research School of Physics, The Australian National University, 2601, Canberra, ACT, Australia
² Convergence Materials Research Center, Gumi Electronics and Information Technology Research Institute, Sandongmyeon, 39171, Gumi, Republic of Korea
³ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, Research School of Physics, The Australian National University, 2601, Canberra, ACT, Australia
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 34141, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
⁵ School of Engineering, The Australian National University, 2601, Canberra, ACT, Australia

^a yhlee@geri.re.kr
^f siva.karuturi@anu.edu.au

Received: 27 October 2021
Accepted: 16 March 2022
Published online: 26 March 2022

Abstract

Carrier-selective contacts using metal oxide thin films have been proposed and successfully demonstrated for dopant-free Si solar cells. However, the electronic properties of several metal oxide thin films such as can deteriorate easily due to the modification of surface chemical state upon exposure to ambient air. Here, we report the use of an ultrathin Au capping layer on to mitigate the undesired surface chemistry modification. In addition, the Au capping layer also functions as a transparent conducting electrode, thereby potentially allowing the replacement of transparent conductive oxides such as indium tin oxide. We further show that the power conversion efficiency of a simple Au//n-Si device increases from 0.53 to 6.43% with the incorporation of a grid type electrode at the front surface. Our results provide insights into the design of efficient solar cells incorporating carrier selective contacts without the need to use transparent conductive oxides.