27%‐Efficiency Four‐Terminal Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells by Sandwiched Gold Nanomesh

Abstract

Multijunction/tandem solar cells have naturally attracted great attention because they are not subject to the Shockley–Queisser limit. Perovskite solar cells are ideal candidates for the top cell in multijunction/tandem devices due to the high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and relatively low voltage loss. Herein, sandwiched gold nanomesh between MoO3 layers is designed as a transparent electrode. The large surface tension of MoO3 effectively improves wettability for gold, resulting in Frank–van der Merwe growth to produce an ultrathin gold nanomesh layer, which guarantees not only excellent conductivity but also great optical transparency, which is particularly important for a multijunction/tandem solar cell. The top MoO3 layer reduces the reflection at the gold layer to further increase light transmission. As a result, the semitransparent perovskite cell shows an 18.3% efficiency, the highest reported for this type of device. When the semitransparent perovskite device is mechanically stacked with a heterojunction silicon solar cell of 23.3% PCE, it yields a combined efficiency of 27.0%, higher than those of both the sub‐cells. This breakthrough in elevating the efficiency of semitransparent and multijunction/tandem devices can help to break the Shockley–Queisser limit.

Four‐Terminal Perovskite on Silicon Tandem Solar Cells Optimal Measurement Schemes

“…As a rule of thumb, the most red-wavelength efficient c-Si SCs will be the most suitable ones for tandem integration. Hence, the record Si SCs structures as interdigitated back-contacted (IBC) [10,23] or silicon heterojunction (SHJ) [24] will allow to reach the highest PCE for perovskite on Si tandem SCs at relative high production costs. In contrast, the common industrialized structures such as passivated emitters rear contact (PERC) SC will be able to reach slightly lower PCE but instead will allow to maintain the production costs significantly lower.…”

2D/3D Heterostructure for Semitransparent Perovskite Solar Cells with Engineered Bandgap Enables Efficiencies Exceeding 25% in Four‐Terminal Tandems with Silicon and CIGS

“…To date, the most efficient perovskite‐based tandem solar cells have been realized using PSCs on top of low‐bandgap c‐Si [ 6,18,21,23,25,34–42,43 ] or thin‐film CIGS ( E g ≈ 1.0–1.2 eV) [ 24,44–49 ] solar cells. [ 4,19,20,50 ] Record PCEs of up to 29.1% (perovskite/c‐Si, 2T), [ 6 ] 27.7% (perovskite/c‐Si, 4T), [ 43,51 ] 23.3% (perovskite/CIGS, 2T), [ 48 ] and 25.9% (perovskite/CIGS, 4T) [ 45 ] have been reported for the different architectures and configurations.…”

Perovskite‐Based Tandem Solar Cells: Get the Most Out of the Sun

“…MAPbI 3 with a bandgap of 1.55-1.60 eV and an absorption onset up to 800 nm is by far the most extensively used wide-bandgap perovskite in TSCs and achieved extremely high efficiencies. The efficiency of MAPbI 3 -based tandem devices debuted at only 13.4% with a MAPbI 3 /silicon-heterojunction (SHJ) 4T tandem structure in 2014, [16] and soared to 27.0% with a MAPbI 3 /SHJ 4T tandem structure in 2020, [36] which surpassed the crystalline silicon solar cells with the highest efficiency of 26.7%. [1] It is reasonable to say that the MAPbI 3 perovskite promoted the initiation of perovskite-based TSCs, including the design of tandem structures.…”

“…[135,136] During the revision of this review, Wang et al developed a sandwich-type transparent electrode with ultrathin gold nanomesh between MoO 3 layers to form MoO 3 /Au/MoO 3 multilayer, where the gold nanomesh layer guaranteed outstanding transparency and conductivity and the top MoO 3 layer functioned as an antireflection layer to reduce the optical loss for more light transmission. [36] The resultant semitransparent perovskite device and 4T perovskite/SHJ TSC exhibited excellent efficiencies of 18.3% and 27.0%, respectively, which created a new record of tandem devices with transparent electrodes based on the ultrathin metal film.…”

“…So far, the highest efficiencies of 2T and 4T MAPbI 3 -based TSC are 21.2% and 27.0%, respectively. [36,119] Inevitably, the extremely fragile MAPbI 3 suffers from external factors, including humidity, heat, light, and oxygen, resulting in rapid degradation under ambient conditions. Within this context, the trend of using mixed-cation lead halide perovskites is emerging.…”