Numerical optical optimization of monolithic planar perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells with regular and inverted device architectures

We numerically maximize the achievable photocurrent density of planar perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells for different device architectures. For the optimizations we combine the transfer-matrix method with a simulated annealing algorithm. The optimizations are conducted within experimentally accessible and relevant layer-thickness ranges, which allows to extract applicable device guidelines. A comparison between regular and inverted tandem-cell designs reveals that a rear-emitter silicon heterojunction in combination with an inverted perovskite top-cell can yield a photocurrent, which is 1.4 mA/cm(2) higher than that of tandem cells with the usual polarity and a front-emitter silicon bottom cell. Switching from the regular to the inverse architecture leads to over 2% (absolute) gain in power conversion efficiency. Finally we show that an efficiency of 30.8% is achievable for such tandem cells with an optimized perovskite band-gap. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America