Lanthanide-Doped Ceria Nanoparticles as Backside Coaters to Improve Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency
| dc.contributor.author | Hajjiah, Ali | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Samir, Effat | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Shehata, Nader | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Salah, Mohamed | en |
| dc.contributor.department | Electrical and Computer Engineering | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-06-25T12:23:26Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2018-06-25T12:23:26Z | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2018-05-23 | en |
| dc.date.updated | 2018-06-25T07:44:47Z | en |
| dc.description.abstract | This paper introduces lanthanide-doped ceria nanoparticles as silicon solar cell back-side coaters, showing their influence on the solar cell efficiency. Ceria nanoparticles can be synthesized to have formed oxygen vacancies (O-vacancies), which are associated with converting cerium ions from the Ce<sup>4+</sup> state ions to the Ce<sup>3+</sup> ones. These O-vacancies follow the rule of improving silicon solar cell conductivity through a hopping mechanism. Besides, under near-ultra violet (near-UV) excitation, the reduced trivalent cerium Ce<sup>3+</sup> ions are directly responsible for down converting the un-absorbed UV wavelengths to a resultant green photo-luminescence emission at ~520 nm, which is absorbed through the silicon solar cell’s active layer. Adding lanthanide elements such as Neodymium “Nd” as ceria nanoparticle dopants helps in forming extra oxygen vacancies (O-vacancies), followed by an increase in the number of Ce<sup>4+</sup> to Ce<sup>3+</sup> ion reductions, thus enhancing the conductivity and photoluminescence down conversion mechanisms. After introducing lanthanide-doped ceria nanoparticles on a silicon solar cell surface, a promising enhancement in the behavior of the solar cell current-voltage curve is observed, and the efficiency is improved by about 25% of its initial value due to the mutual impact of improving both electric conductivity and optical conversions. | en |
| dc.description.version | Published version | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.citation | Hajjiah, A.; Samir, E.; Shehata, N.; Salah, M. Lanthanide-Doped Ceria Nanoparticles as Backside Coaters to Improve Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency. Nanomaterials 2018, 8, 357. | en |
| dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.3390/nano8060357 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83723 | en |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.publisher | MDPI | en |
| dc.rights | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en |
| dc.subject | solar cells | en |
| dc.subject | ceria nanoparticles | en |
| dc.subject | lanthanide doped | en |
| dc.subject | conductivity | en |
| dc.subject | photoluminescence intensity | en |
| dc.title | Lanthanide-Doped Ceria Nanoparticles as Backside Coaters to Improve Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency | en |
| dc.title.serial | Nanomaterials | en |
| dc.type | Article - Refereed | en |
| dc.type.dcmitype | Text | en |