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Enhanced Erbium-Doped Ceria Nanostructure Coating to Improve Solar Cell Performance
Nader Shehata1,2,3, Michael Clavel4, Kathleen Meehan5
1Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute State University, 302 Whittemore Hall, VA 24061, USA. nader83@vt.edu.
Materials (Basel, Switzerland)
|August 11, 2017
Summary
Adding reduced erbium-doped ceria nanoparticles (REDC NPs) to silicon solar cells boosts efficiency by improving conductivity and enabling multi-optical conversions. This enhancement increases solar cell performance from 15% to 16.5%.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
- Photovoltaics
Background:
- Silicon solar cells are crucial for renewable energy.
- Improving solar cell efficiency is a key research area.
- Nanoparticle coatings offer potential for performance enhancement.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of reduced erbium-doped ceria nanoparticles (REDC NPs) as a coating on silicon solar cells.
- To understand the mechanisms by which REDC NPs improve solar cell performance.
- To analyze the impact of REDC NPs on electrical conductivity and optical properties.
Main Methods:
- Coating silicon solar cells with reduced erbium-doped ceria nanoparticles.
- Characterizing the nanoparticles for their optical and electrical properties.
- Measuring solar cell efficiency before and after coating.
- Simulating electric field distribution within the solar cell.
Main Results:
- REDC NPs improve electrical conductivity via a hopping mechanism involving Ce3+ and Ce4+.
- Ce3+ in REDC NPs facilitates down-conversion of light.
- Erbium dopants enable up-conversion of near-infrared light.
- Solar cell efficiency increased from 15% to 16.5% after applying the REDC NP coating.
Conclusions:
- Reduced erbium-doped ceria nanoparticles are effective in enhancing silicon solar cell efficiency.
- The performance improvement is attributed to combined effects of enhanced conductivity and multi-optical conversions.
- Further studies on electric field distribution confirm the coating's impact.
