Efficiency Enhancement of Heterojunction with
Intrinsic Thin-Layer Silicon Solar Cell Using
Plasmonics Scattering of Indium Nanoparticles
Han-Chung Huang1, Wen-Jeng Ho1,*, Weng Su-Han1,
Jheng-Jie Liu1
1Department of Electro-Optical Engineering
National Taipei University of Technology
Taipei 10608, Taiwan
Abstract—The additional enhanced in conversion efficiency of the
heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) silicon solar cell by
using plasmonics scattering of indium nanoparticles (In NPs) was
experimentally demonstrated. The conversion efficiency of
17.15% for the HIT solar cell with In NPs was obtained,
compared to that of 16.63% for HIT solar cell without In NPs.
Keywords- Indium nanoparticles (In NPs), heterojunction with
intrinsic thin-layer (HIT), plasmons scattering, silicon solar cell
I. INTRODUCTION
Heterojunction solar cells consisted of crystalline silicon
(C-Si) and hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) have
been proposed to achieve higher conversion efficiency.
Recently, the C-Si heterojunction with an intrinsic thin-layer
(HIT) of a-Si:H can provide the recombination loss
improvements in a-Si:H/C-Si hetero-interface properties and
optical confinement, resulted in conversion efficiency higher
than 21% [1, 2]. On the other hand, plasmonics scattering of
metallic nanoparticles (NPs) applying on photovoltaic devices
to enhance conversion efficiency have been widely studied [3-
6]. Most previous studies have shown that silver (Ag) and gold
(Au) were the most used NPs material. However, scant studies
have reported that the combination of plasmonics scattering
and HIT C-Si solar cell to further enhance conversion
efficiency.
In this study, the HIT C-Si solar cell is fabricated and
characterized, firstly. Then, indium (In) NPs was deposited
on the surface of HIT with a SiO2 space layer. Finally,
plasmonics scattering and efficiency enhancement of the HIT
cells with In NPS are examined by optical reflectance,
external quantum efficiency (EQE), and photovoltaic current-
voltage (J-V) measurements.
II. EXPERIMENTS
Figure 1 (a) shows a schematic diagram of a bare HIT solar
cell with a cell area of 1cm2. A clean 200-µm-thick randomly
textured n-type C-Si was used as a start substrate for the HIT
solar cell processing. An intrinsic a-Si:H layer of 12 nm thick
followed by a p+-type a-Si layer of 10 nm thick were deposited
on the front-side surface of the textured C-Si substrate to form
a p/n heterojunction. On the other side of the c-Si, intrinsic (12
Shih-Wei Chen2 and Chang-Hong Shen2
2
National Applied Research Laboratories
National Nano Device Laboratories
Hsinchu 20078, Taiwan
1,
*: wjho@ntut.edu.tw
nm) and n+-type a-Si:H (20 nm) layers were deposited to obtain
a back surface field (BSF) structure. All a-Si:H films were
deposited using plasma enhance chemical-vapor-deposition
(PECVD) at 200 °C. A 100-nm thick indium tin oxide (ITO)
film was deposited on both sides by thermally sputtering.
Finally, Fig. 1(b) shows the HIT solar cell with In NPs. In
which, a 20-nm SiO2 film and a 3.8 nm indium film were
deposited on the rface of the bare HIT solar cell by E-beam
evaporation and subsequently annealed at 200° C for 30
minutes to form In NPs. The HIT cell with a 20-nm SiO2 film
or the cell with In NPs deposited on HIT cell without a 20-nm
SiO2 space layer are also prepared for comparing. The
plasmonics scattering and efficiency enhancement of the HIT
cells with In NPS are examined by optical reflectance, external
quantum efficiency (EQE), and photovoltaic current-voltage (J-
V) under AM 1.5G solar simulation.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 2 shows the optical reflectance of the evaluated HIT
solar cells. The reflectance of the cell with a 20-nm SiO2 space
layer and the cell with In NPs deposited on a SiO2 space layer
is lower than the bare HIT cell. In addition, the reflectance of
the cell with In NPs deposited on a SiO2 space layer is further
reduced in the full wavelength range due to plasmonics
scattering of In NPs, compared to the cell the cell with only a
SiO2 space layer.
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the HIT solar cell with and without In NPs.
 Figure 3 shows the EQE response of the evaluated HIT TABLE I. J-V of the HIT solar cells.
solar cells. The EQE values of the cell with In NPs deposited Jsc Voc F.F. η Δη
on a SiO2 space layer were higher than that of the bare cell, (mA/cm2) (mV) (%) (%) (%)
the cell with In NPs and the cell with only a SiO2 space layer. Bare
38.70 617.93 69.56 16.63 -
The obtained EQE results are agreed to the measured results HIT-SC
HIT-SC
of optical reflectance. with In NPs
38.64 615.92 70.12 16.69 0.36
Figure 4 shows the photovoltaic J-V curves of the HIT-SC
evaluated HIT solar cells. The photovoltaic performances are 38.98 618.44 69.59 16.77 0.84
with SiO2
summarized in Table I. The short-circuit current density (Jsc) HIT-SC
of 39.66 mA/cm2 and conversion efficiency (η) of 17.15% for with In NPs 39.66 615.67 70.23 17.15 3.1
/ SiO2.
the HIT cell with In NPs deposited on a SiO2 space layer were
higher than the other cells. Therefore, the gain in absolute IV. CONCLUSION
efficiency of 0.52% was obtained when the HIT solar cell
The HIT C-Si solar cells were fabricated and
coated with In NPs on a SiO2 space layer due to plasmonics
characterized. The electrical and optical performances of the
scattering inducing by In NPs, compared to bare HIT cell.
HIT solar cells with and without In NPs on a SiO2 space layer
were measured and compared. The optical reflectance and EQE
response were revealed the plasmonics scattering induced by In
NPs. The results of photovoltaic J-V also confirmed that Jsc and
η of the HIT solar cell with plasmonics In NPs were additional
increased due to the plasmonics light scattering. The gain in
absolute efficiency of 0.52% was obtained in this study.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Science
and Technology of the Republic of China for financial support
under Grant MOST 103-2221-E-027-049-MY3.

Figure 2. Optical reflectance of the evaluated HIT solar cells.

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Figure 3. EQE of the HIT solar cells.
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Figure 4. Photovoltaic J-V curves of the evaluated HIT solar cells.