Engineering of contact resistance between transparent single-walled carbon nanotube films and a-Si:H single junction solar cells by gold nanodots

The viability of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) as a transparent conducting electrode on a-Si based single junction solar cells was explored. A Schottky barrier formed at a SWCNT/a-Si interface was removed by introducing high work function gold nanodots at the SWCNT/a-Si interface. This allows comparable device performance from SWCNT-electrode-based a-Si solar cells to that obtained by using conventional transparent conducting oxides. Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.