Graphene/Silicon Schottky Junction Solar Cells

Several emerging application domains such as Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable electronic microsystems demand flexible solar cells that exhibit simultaneously low cost and high efficiency. Recent advances in the field of graphene-based solar cells have allowed the demonstration of cells with these features. In particular, graphene/silicon Schottky junction solar cells have demonstrated a very interesting performance in this context. The paper, after a review of the graphene-based solar cells, reports on some numerical results on a graphene-on-silicon flexible solar cell having an efficiency > 10% and two important advantages, the environmental stability and the low complexity of the fabrication process. The design of this solar cell has been carried out through a general and accurate mathematical model, which has been validated by using experimental data reported in literature.