Influence of Al-doped ZnO transparent contacts deposited by a spray pyrolysis technique on performance of HIT solar cells

Transparent and conductive Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were deposited by spray pyrolysis and analysed in the aim to improve optical and electrical properties involved in the efficiency of Heterostructure with Intrinsic Thin Layer (HIT) solar cell. X-ray diffraction measurement shows that AZO film grown on glass has (002) preferred orientation. High optical transmittance value of 80% in the visible region was observed and the optical band gap was found to be 3.31 eV at room temperature. The influence of AZO thin films as transparent conductive oxide TCO on heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer (HIT) solar cell performance was investigated using software simulation. The beneficial effect of implementing AZO front contact for increasing electrical energy conversion properties of HIT solar cell compared to the reference cell without the AZO layer. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (EUMISD)