Numerical simulation of crystalline silicon solar cells with full area metal oxide rear contacts

In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of MoO
_x
and TiO
₂
layers as minority carrier selective contacts in crystalline silicon solar cells. We use numerical simulation to show that it is possible to achieve an improvement in open circuit voltage by up to 70 mV for TiO
₂
and 100 mV for MoO
_x
with one-sun efficiencies exceeding 20%. We further determine the material parameters of primary importance to each of the materials in determining their effectiveness at surface passivation, finding that the density of surface defects is most important for TiO
₂
, while the electron affinity predominates for MoO
_x
.