Herein, three novel third‐generation (3G) solar cells: n‐Si/p‐FeSi2/p+‐Si, n‐Si/p‐FeSi2/p+‐BaSi2, and n‐CdS/p‐FeSi2/p+‐BaSi2 based on the orthorhombic iron disilicide (β‐FeSi2) absorber are demonstrated theoretically for multikilowatt photovoltaic (PV) systems and space applications. These cells overcome the complication of producing low voltages (≤450 mV) of FeSi2‐based solar cells due to the narrow bandgap (≈0.87 eV) of the absorber. Using crystalline silicon (c‐Si), cadmium sulfide (CdS), and orthorhombic barium disilicide (β‐BaSi2) as junction partners, effects of parameters such as the thickness, doping and defect densities, band offsets, and temperature are studied systematically by a solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS‐1D). The highest open‐circuit voltage of 958 mV is attained materially with a 300 nm thin absorber. This article renders the optimization of the PV parameters to improve the device performance with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 28.18%, 31.61%, and 38.93% by the three novel npp+ approaches compared to the PCEs of 15.78% and 24.96% for the solar cells n‐Si/p‐FeSi2 and p‐Si/i‐FeSi2/n‐Si, respectively.

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In this article, semiconducting Barium Silicide (BaSi2) absorber based novel heterostructure thin-film solar cell (TFSC) has been studied in details. The solar cell has been numerically simulated and intensely analyzed by Solar cell Capacitance Simulator (SCAPS). Layer thickness was varied from 100 to 3000 nm for p+-BaSi2 absorber, 20 to 200 nm for both n-CdS buffer, and n+-SnO2:F window layers to optimize the device. Hitherwards, the impurities concentration for acceptor (NA) and donor (ND) ions was optimized for each layer through ample variation. The influence of single-donor and acceptor type bulk defect densities has been investigated thoroughly in p+-BaSi2 and n-CdS materials, respectively. An efficiency >30% is achievable ideally with a 2 μm thick BaSi2 absorber without incorporating defects whereas it reduces to 26.32% with only 1.2 μm thick absorber including certain amount of defects. Cell thermal stability and alteration of cell parameters were studied under cell operating temperature from to Finally, the effect of series (Rs) and shunt (Rsh) resistances on proposed cell has been investigated meticulously. This newly designed solar cell structure proclaims the chance of fabricating a resourceful, low cost, and highly efficient TFSC near future.

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