Deoxyribonucleic Acid-Based Electron Selective Contact for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Development of carrier selective contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells has been recently of great interest toward the further expansion of silicon photovoltaics. The use of new electron and hole selective layers has opened an array of possibilities due to the low-cost processing and non-doping contacts. Here, a non-doped heterojunction silicon solar cell without the use of any intrinsic amorphous silicon is fabricated using Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as the electron transport layer (ETL) and transition metal oxide V2O5 as the hole transport layer (HTL). The deposition and characterization of the DNA films on crystalline silicon have been studied, the films have shown a n-type behavior with a work function of 3.42 eV and a contact resistance of 28 m ohm cm(2). This non-doped architecture has demonstrated a power conversion efficiency of 15.6%, which supposes an increase of more than 9% with respect to the cell not containing the biomolecule, thus paving the way for a future role of nucleic acids as ETLs.

Automated summary

Recently, the development of carrier selective contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells has attracted great interest in order to expand silicon photovoltaics. By utilizing new electron and hole selective layers with low-cost processing and non-doping contacts, it is possible to achieve higher efficiencies. In this study, a non-doped heterojunction silicon solar cell was fabricated using DNA as the electron transport layer (ETL) and V2O5 as the hole transport layer (HTL), achieving a power conversion efficiency of 15.6%.