Highly Conductive Ag Nanowire Hybrid Electrodes Improve Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Replacing ITO with a hybrid nanowire-based electrode is shown to enhance efficiency in front-contacted silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. Electrode performance was tested on practical scale (4.0 cm(2)) planar SHJ cells using substrate conformal imprint lithography (SCIL) for nanowire fabrication. The NW hybrid electrodes exhibit anomalous transmission and a 10-fold improvement in sheet conductance relative to the standard ITO, enabling larger finger spacings without compromising fill factor. By replacing >70% of ITO with transparent SiNx we simultaneously reduce parasitic optical absorption and reflection losses. Combined, these effects increase the short circuit current density by 1.4 mA cm(-2), yielding an absolute increase in cell efficiency of 2.2%.