Colloidal antireflection coating improves graphene-silicon solar cells

Nano Lett. 2013 Apr 10;13(4):1776-81. doi: 10.1021/nl400353f. Epub 2013 Mar 25.

Abstract

Carbon nanotube-Si and graphene-Si solar cells have attracted much interest recently owing to their potential in simplifying manufacturing process and lowering cost compared to Si cells. Until now, the power conversion efficiency of graphene-Si cells remains under 10% and well below that of the nanotube-Si counterpart. Here, we involved a colloidal antireflection coating onto a monolayer graphene-Si solar cell and enhanced the cell efficiency to 14.5% under standard illumination (air mass 1.5, 100 mW/cm(2)) with a stable antireflection effect over long time. The antireflection treatment was realized by a simple spin-coating process, which significantly increased the short-circuit current density and the incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency to about 90% across the visible range. Our results demonstrate a great promise in developing high-efficiency graphene-Si solar cells in parallel to the more extensively studied carbon nanotube-Si structures.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Colloids / chemistry
  • Electric Power Supplies*
  • Graphite / chemistry*
  • Nanotubes, Carbon / chemistry
  • Silicon / chemistry*
  • Solar Energy

Substances

  • Colloids
  • Nanotubes, Carbon
  • Graphite
  • Silicon