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Numerical analysis of emerging concept of perovskite/silicon heterojunction solar cells

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This paper presents insight into the emerging concept of planar perovskite/silicon heterojunction solar cells. Here, we report optimum efficiency of 26.46% for Pt/p-CH3NH3PbI3/n-cSi/Ag and 25.95% for Al/n-CH3NH3PbI3/p-cSi/Au heterojunction solar cells. Thickness and doping concentration optimizations of the (p/n)-CH3NH3PbI3 and (n/p)-c-Si layers were carried out using SCAPS-1D. Various front and back contact metals, including Al, Ag, Cu, Au and Pt, were analysed for these perovskite/silicon heterojunction solar cells. Al and Ag at the front contact with Au at the back contact exhibited maximum efficiency for n-CH3NH3PbI3/p-cSi heterojunction solar cells. Similarly, maximum efficiency was observed for Al and Ag at the back contact with Pt at the front contact for p-CH3NH3PbI3/n-cSi. Moreover, the impact of interface defect states on the performance was analysed considering the perovskite/silicon interface properties significantly governing the photo-generated charge carrier transport across the heterojunction. Pt/p-CH3NH3PbI3/n-cSi/Ag was more tolerant to perovskite/silicon interface defects than Al/n-CH3NH3PbI3/p-cSi/Au heterojunction solar cells.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the director of the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, India, for his kind support. One of the authors, Manoj Kumar, gratefully acknowledges the University Grants Commission (UGC) of the Govt. of India for providing a Junior Research Fellowship (SRF, DEC-18-532342). The authors also acknowledge Prof. Marc Burgelman and his team at the University of Ghent (Belgium) for providing SCAPS-1D.

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The authors have not received no specific grant for this research from any funding agency.

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  1. CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, Dr. K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi, 110012, India

    Manoj Kumar & Sushil Kumar

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, 201002, India

    Manoj Kumar & Sushil Kumar

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Kumar, M., Kumar, S. Numerical analysis of emerging concept of perovskite/silicon heterojunction solar cells. J Comput Electron 22, 1061–1074 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10825-023-02035-7

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