Single junction crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells are reaching their practical efficiency limit whereas perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells have achieved efficiencies above the theoretical limit of single junction c-Si solar cells. Next to low-thermal budget silicon heterojunction architecture, high-thermal budget carrier-selective passivating contacts (CSPCs) based on polycrystalline-SiO_x (poly-SiO_x) also constitute a promising architecture for high efficiency perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells. In this work, we present the development of c-Si bottom cells based on high temperature poly-SiO_x CSPCs and demonstrate novel high efficiency four-terminal (4T) and two-terminal (2T) perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells. First, we tuned the ultra-thin, thermally grown SiO_x. Then we optimized the passivation properties of p-type and n-type doped poly-SiO_x CSPCs. Here, we have optimized the p-type doped poly-SiO_x CSPC on textured interfaces via a two-step annealing process. Finally, we integrated such bottom solar cells in both 4T and 2T tandems, achieving 28.1% and 23.2% conversion efficiency, respectively.

In this work, an optical study of perovskite/c Si tandem solar cells with c-Si bottom solar cells passivated by high thermal-budget poly-Si, poly-SiOx and poly-SiCx is performed to evaluate their optical performance with respect to tandem solar cells employing conventional silicon heterojunction (SHJ) bottom cells. In our analysis 2, 3 and 4 terminals (2T, 3T and 4T) encapsulated mono-facial and bi-facial tandem architectures are considered. Our optical analysis accounts for the real-world hourly and seasonal spectral variation, and its effect on current mismatch between top and bottom sub-cells. We demonstrate that different climates and different bottom cells require different optimized tandem designs.

The study of a two-terminal (2T) perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cell requires accurate and concurrent description of photons absorption and tunnelling-mediated charge transport. By analysing current collection across the device heterointerfaces, we investigated the effect of (i) perovskite thickness on the short-circuit current density (Jsc) of the tandem device and (ii) temperature on devices performance. We deployed an advanced opto-electrical modelling framework based on optical sub-models from GenPro4 and on self-consistent fundamental semiconductor equations implemented in TCAD Sentaurus. Using these simulations of perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells, an in-depth analysis of the physics of current contribution of supporting layers has been carried out. Solving numerically the fundamental equations of semiconductors, we theoretically show for the first time that electron-hole pairs photo-generated in the TRJ can be collected, effectively boosting Jsc values well beyond (photocurrent density) Jph levels. In addition, a temperature-based study of these perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells has been performed to evaluate the temperature coefficient which is useful for their energy yield simulations.

Since single junction c-Si solar cells are reaching their practical efficiency limit. Perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells hold the promise of achieving greater than 30% efficiencies. In this regard, optical simulations can deliver guidelines for reducing the parasitic absorption losses and increasing the photocurrent density of the tandem solar cells. In this work, an optical study of 2, 3 and 4 terminal perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells with c-Si solar bottom cells passivated by high thermal-budget poly-Si, poly-SiO_x and poly-SiC_x is performed to evaluate their optical performance with respect to the conventional tandem solar cells employing silicon heterojunction bottom cells. The parasitic absorption in these carrier selective passivating contacts has been quantified. It is shown that they enable greater than 20 mA/cm² matched implied photocurrent density in un-encapsulated 2T tandem architecture along with being compatible with high temperature production processes. For studying the performance of such tandem devices in real-world irradiance conditions and for different locations of the world, the effect of solar spectrum and angle of incidence on their optical performance is studied. Passing from mono-facial to bi-facial tandem solar cells, the photocurrent density in the bottom cell can be increased, requiring again optical optimization. Here, we analyse the effect of albedo, perovskite thickness and band gap as well as geographical location on the optical performance of these bi-facial perovskite/c-Si tandem solar cells. Our optical study shows that bi-facial 2T tandems, that also convert light incident from the rear, require radically thicker perovskite layers to match the additional current from the c-Si bottom cell. For typical perovskite bandgap and albedo values, even doubling the perovskite thickness is not sufficient. In this respect, lower bandgap perovskites are very interesting for application not only in bi-facial 2T tandems but also in related 3T and 4T tandems.

The optical modelling for optimizing high-efficiency c-Si solar cells endowed with poly-SiO_x or poly-SiC_x carrier-selective passivating contacts (CSPCs) demands a thorough understanding of their optical properties, especially their absorption coefficient. Due to the mixed phase nature of these CSPCs, spectroscopic ellipsometry is unable to accurately detect the weak free carrier absorption (FCA) at long wavelengths. In this work, the absorption coefficient of doped poly-SiO_x and poly-SiC_x layers as function of oxygen and carbon content, respectively, was obtained for wavelengths (300–2000 nm) by means of two alternative techniques. The first approach, photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS), was used for layers grown on quartz substrates and is appealing from the point of view of sample fabrication. The second, a novel inverse modelling (IM) approach based on reflectance and transmittance measurements, was instead used for layers grown on textured c-Si wafer substrates to mimic symmetrical samples. Although the absorption coefficients obtained from these two techniques slightly differ due to the different used substrates, we could successfully measure weak FCA in our CSPCs layers. Using an in-house developed multi-optical regime simulator and comparing modelled reflectance and transmittance with measured counterparts from symmetrical samples, we confirmed that with increasing doping concentration FCA increases; and found that the absorption coefficients obtained from IM can now be used to perform optical simulations of these CSPCs in solar cells.