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Impedance spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool for charge transport and interface limitations in advanced silicon solar cells

delete2026-04-07
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PRE
AI
S
Sharma, Ruchi K.
A
Alam, Shahnawaz
DOI:10.1063/5.0328090delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Advanced silicon solar cell technologies employ multilayer architectures and offer significant potential to improve power conversion efficiency. However, fabrication-induced nonidealities often lead to charge-transport issues and reduced photovoltaic performance. Therefore, a systematic assessment of the device is essential to pinpoint the specific regions of performance loss and to enable targeted optimization. This study applies detailed impedance spectroscopy (IS) with a broadband AC signal in the range of 1 Hz to 1 MHz for silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells; one is defect-dominated charge transfer in a-Si:H layer, another one is hindered charge transport at the p-a-Si:H/ITO hole-selective contact, and an optimized SHJ cell. These effects manifest within a distinct frequency range of the IS response, thereby enabling the identification of the dominant charge-carrier resistive and recombination-loss mechanisms. A deeper analysis of the Nyquist plot, together with frequency-dispersed phase shifts and real and imaginary impedance responses (Z ', Z ''), provides clear signatures of the specific location of the performance loss. It is observed that the optimized device has a well-established depletion region and minority-carrier diffusion, with negligible resistive drop across the device. However, in unoptimized devices, additional charge-delay and impedance features appear within a specific frequency range, revealing distinct origins of the performance loss: one associated with the i-a-Si:H layer and the other with the ITO contact. Therefore, IS provides a powerful basis for diagnosing distortions in photocurrent-voltage graphs, degradation pathways, and transport bottlenecks. The frequency-resolved IS can be a critical tool for guiding interface engineering and process optimization of any optoelectronic device.
Keywords:
HETEROJUNCTION
CONTACTS
LAYER
BIAS

Journal

Journal of Applied Physics cover
Journal of Applied Physics
IF:
2.5
Papers:
2.5K
Citations:
14.5W

Organization

I
indian institute of technology system (iit system)
Scholars:
9.3W
Papers: 9.9W
Citations: 93
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