Electroluminescence from amorphous–crystalline silicon heterostructures

Abstract The light emission from heterostructures of hydrogenated amorphous silicon and monocrystalline silicon of the type a-Si:H(n + )/c-Si(p) under forward bias has been studied. From non-optimized solar cell structures silicon band edge emission at 1.085 eV is obtained with an external power conversion efficiency of η ext =0.013% at 300 K. Treating the heterostructure as a one-sided n–p junction the internal conversion efficiency is estimated to be η i ≈0.3%. It is argued that such heterostructures can be optimized by improvement of the optical confinement, reduction of interface recombination and enhancement of the non-radiative lifetime of the wafer material.