2020/03/12 by Yajie Jiang, Michael P. Nielsen, Jiang, Y. +13
Engineering · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Nanowire Synthesis and Applications #Silicon and Solar Cell Technologies #solar cell performance optimization
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2003.05565
openalex publication_date 2020/03/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The economic value of a photovoltaic installation depends upon both its lifetime and power conversion efficiency. Progress towards the latter includes mechanisms to circumvent the Shockley- Queisser limit, such as tandem designs and multiple exciton generation (MEG). Here we explain how both silicon tandem and MEG enhanced silicon cell architectures result in lower cell operating temperatures, increasing the device lifetime compared to standard c-Si cells. Also demonstrated are further advantages from MEG enhanced silicon cells: (i) the device architecture can completely circumvent the need for current-matching; and (ii) upon degradation, tetracene, a candidate singlet fission (a form of MEG) material, is transparent to the solar spectrum. The combination of (i) and (ii) mean that the primary silicon device will continue to operate with reasonable efficiency even if the singlet fission layer degrades. The lifespan advantages of singlet fission enhanced silicon cells, from a module perspective, are compared favorably alongside the highly regarded perovskite/silicon tandem and conventional c-Si modules.