Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells are highly interesting, because of their high efficiency and low cost fabrication. So far, the most applied transparent conductive oxide (TCO) is indium tin oxide (ITO). The replacement of ITO with cheaper, more abundant and environmental friendly material with texturing capability is a promising way to reduce the production cost of the future SHJ solar cells. Here, we report on the fabrication of the SHJ solar cells with direct current-sputtered aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) as an alternative TCO. Furthermore, we address several important differences between ITO and the ZnO:Al layers including a high Schottky barrier at the emitter/ZnO:Al interface and a high intrinsic resistivity of the ZnO:Al layers. To overcome the high Schottky barrier, we suggest employing micro-crystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) emitter, which also improves temperature threshold and passivation of the solar cell precursor. In addition, we report on the extensive studies of the effect of the ZnO:Al deposition parameters including layer thickness, oxygen flow, power density and temperature on the electrical properties of the fabricated SHJ solar cells. Finally, the results of our study indicate that the ZnO:Al deposition parameters significantly affect the electrical properties of the obtained solar cell. By understanding and fine-tuning all these parameters, a high conversion efficiency of 19.2% on flat wafer (small area (5 × 5 mm 2 ) and without any front metal grid) is achieved.

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In this paper, modeling of light propagation in silicon thin film solar cells without using any fitting parameter is presented. The aim is to create a realistic view of the light trapping effects and of the resulting optical generation rate in the absorbing semiconductor layers. The focus is on real three dimensional systems. Our software Sentaurus tcad, developed by Synopsys, has the ability to import real topography measurements and to model the light propagation using the finite-difference time-domain method. To verify the simulation, we compared the measured and simulated angular distribution functions of a glass/SnO2:F transparent conducting oxide system for different wavelengths. The optical generation rate of charge carriers in amorphous silicon thin film solar cells including rough interfaces is calculated. The distribution of the optical generation rate is correlated with the shape of the interface, and the external quantum efficiencies are calculated and compared to experimental data.

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