Enhanced Passivation of Silicon Surface in MIS Solar Cells with Graphene Oxide and Additional Interfacial Layer.

Applications for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) require cheap, highly efficient, smaller dimension Schottky-barrier (SB) solar cells. Currently, results of the SB solar cells' Open Circuit Voltage (Voc), Minority Carrier Lifetime (teff) and Power Conversion Efficiency (PCE) are discouraging. Graphene Oxide (GO) appears to be the solution because of its better surface passivation property. In this work, GO as an interfacial layer, is investigated with a simulation model and results are verified experimentally by fabrication. Novelty of this work is a change in the deposition process of GO and inclusion of an Oxide layer between the Silicon and GO. The average Voc of the proposed solar cell is increased by 4% and the minority carrier lifetime is enhanced by ~10% which is expected to increase the PCE. The noteworthy improvement of the silicon surface passivation is attributed to the dangling bond saturation which results in reduced carrier recombination. This investigation leads us to a solar cell that can be fabricated with low cost at lower thermal temperature which is a very efficient alternative to power sensor nodes that are deployed in large numbers in WSN applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]