Prediction of sub-pyramid texturing as the next step towards high efficiency silicon heterojunction solar cells

The interfacial morphology of crystalline silicon/hydrogenated amorphous silicon (c-Si/a-Si:H) is a key success factor to approach the theoretical efficiency of Si-based solar cells, especially Si heterojunction technology. The unexpected crystalline silicon epitaxial growth and interfacial nanotwins formation remain a challenging issue for silicon heterojunction technology. Here, we design a hybrid interface by tuning pyramid apex-angle to improve c-Si/a-Si:H interfacial morphology in silicon solar cells. The pyramid apex-angle (slightly smaller than 70.53°) consists of hybrid (111)(0.9)/(011)(0.1) c-Si planes, rather than pure (111) planes in conventional texture pyramid. Employing microsecond-long low-temperature (500 K) molecular dynamic simulations, the hybrid (111)/(011) plane prevents from both c-Si epitaxial growth and nanotwin formation. More importantly, given there is not any additional industrial preparation process, the hybrid c-Si plane could improve c-Si/a-Si:H interfacial morphology for a-Si passivated contacts technique, and wide-applied for all silicon-based solar cells as well.