An 8.68% Efficiency Chemically-Doped-Free Graphene–Silicon Solar Cell Using Silver Nanowires Network Buried Contacts

Abstract

Graphene-silicon (Gr-Si) heterojunction solar cells have been recognized as one of the most low-cost candidates in photovoltaics due to its simple fabrication process. However, the high sheet resistance of chemical vapor deposited (CVD) Gr films is still the most important limiting factor for the improvement of the power conversion efficiency of Gr-Si solar cells, especially in the case of large device-active area. In this work, we have fabricated a novel transparent conductive film by hybriding a monolayer Gr film with silver nanowires (AgNWs) network soldered by the graphene oxide (GO) flakes. This Gr-AgNWs hybrid film exhibits low sheet resistance and larger direct-current to optical conductivity ratio, quite suitable for solar cell fabrication. An efficiency of 8.68% has been achieved for the Gr-AgNWs-Si solar cell, in which the AgNWs network acts as buried contacts. Meanwhile, the Gr-AgNWs-Si solar cells have much better stability than the chemically doped Gr-Si solar cells. These results show a new route for the fabrication of high efficient and stable Gr-Si solar cells.

Raman and Conductivity Analysis of Graphene for Biomedical Applications

“…As a two-dimensional material, graphene shows very good thermal and electrical conductivities, which, combined with its unique optical properties, make it suitable for a variety of applications [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Many efforts have been made in the last decade related to the conductivity of graphene—in finding accurate measuring methods, as well as in fabricating new graphene-based materials with improved performance [23,24,25]. In this context, modification of graphene has become a trend.…”

“…In this context, modification of graphene has become a trend. For example, the integration of metal nanowires in graphene thin films has led to reduced resistance of the films [23,24]. An increase in solar cell efficiency due to improvement of the direct-current to optical conductivity ratio has also been reported [24].…”

13.7% Efficiency graphene–gallium arsenide Schottky junction solar cells with a P3HT hole transport layer

“…In order to reduce the cost of solar cell fabrication, a simple process at low temperature is necessary. Since the graphene, which can be prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), [6] has some fascinating properties, such as its two-dimensional characteristic, near-zero band-gap, [7] high electrical conductivity, [8] high mobility, [9] high transmittance within the ultraviolet-visible region [7] and excellent chemical and physical stability [10], it has been utilized to combine with semiconductor for the solar cell fabrication based on a simple transfer technique [11][12][13][14].The first graphene-silicon (GrSi) heterojunction solar cell was fabricated by Li et al in 2010, which achieved a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.5% [15]. Subsequently, considerable progress has been achieved and the efficiency of pristine monolayer Gr-Si solar cell reached nearly 4% [16].…”

Multilayer Graphene with Chemical Modification as Transparent Conducting Electrodes in Organic Light-Emitting Diode

“…Nevertheless, the increasing cost of indium, brittleness, and photoelectric attenuation due to indium diffusion limited the development of the OLEDs. Graphene, as a member of the two-dimensional material community, has excellent photoelectric performance, such as ultra-high carrier mobility and transparency, which shows tremendous potential to replace ITO as transparent conductive electrodes in photoelectric devices [15, 16]. The common method of preparing large-area graphene films is through chemical vapor deposition (CVD) on metallic substrates, which typically contains the transfer of the as-grown graphene onto target substrates for further device fabrication.…”