Over the last several years, organic–inorganic lead halide perovskites have rapidly emerged as a new photovoltaic contender. Although energy conversion efficiency above 20% has now been certified, improved understanding of the material properties contributing to these high performance levels may allow the progression to even higher efficiency, stable cells. The optical properties of these new materials are important not only to device design but also because of the insight they provide into less directly accessible properties, including energy-band structures, binding energies, and likely impact of excitons, as well as into absorption and inverse radiative recombination processes.

aMonolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells show great promise for further efficiency enhancement for current silicon photovoltaic technology. In general, an interface (tunnelling or recombination) layer is usually required for electrical contact between the top and the bottom cells, which incurs higher fabrication costs and parasitic absorption. Most of the monolithic perovskite/Si tandem cells demonstrated use a hetero-junction silicon (Si) solar cell as the bottom cell, on small areas only. This work is the first to successfully integrate a low temperature processed (r150 1C) planar CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 perovskite solar cell on a homo-junction silicon solar cell to achieve a monolithic tandem without the use of an additional interface layer on large areas (4 and 16 cm 2 ).Solution processed SnO 2 has been effective in providing dual functions in the monolithic tandem, serving as an ETL for the perovskite cell and as a recombination contact with the n-type silicon homo-junction solar cell that has a boron doped p-type (p++) front emitter. The SnO 2 /p++ Si interface is characterised in this work and the dominant transport mechanism is simulated using Sentaurus technology computer-aided design (TCAD) modelling. The champion device on 4 cm 2 achieves a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 21.0% under reverse-scanning with a V OC of 1.68 V, a J SC of 16.1 mA cm À2 and a high FF of 78% yielding a steady-state efficiency of 20.5%. As our monolithic tandem device does not rely on the SnO 2 for lateral conduction, which is managed by the p++ emitter, up scaling to large areas becomes relatively straightforward. On a large area of 16 cm 2 , a reverse scan PCE of 17.6% and a steady-state PCE of 17.1% are achieved. To our knowledge, these are the most efficient perovskite/homo-junction-silicon tandem solar cells that are larger than 1 cm 2 . Most importantly, our results demonstrate for the first time that monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells can be achieved with excellent performance without the need for an additional interface layer. This work is relevant to the commercialisation of efficient large-area perovskite/homo-junction silicon tandem solar cells. Broader contextA simple approach for integrating a perovskite solar cell monolithically onto a Si solar cell is reported here. The first advantage of this approach is that it does not require additional fabrication of an additional interface layer between the perovskite and Si cell. The second advantage of this approach is that it is compatible with a homo-junction p-n Si solar cell, which is a common Si solar cell structure for commercial cells. The third advantage is that the entire sequence for the planar perovskite cell fabrication is done at low temperatures, minimising damage to the bottom Si solar cell. The fourth advantage is that the SnO 2 electron transport layer of the perovskite top cell also serves as a recombination contact with the silicon bottom cell. Finally, this monolithic tandem approach does not rely on the SnO 2 for lateral conducti...

A detailed optical analysis of the absorption distribution, parasitic absorption and reflection losses in various semi-transparent perovskite solar cell structures and their impact on tandem cell efficiencies is reported.