Effect of germanium fraction on the effective minority carrier lifetime in thin film amorphous-Si/crystalline-Si1xGex/crystalline-Si heterojunction solar cells

Thin-film amorphous silicon germanium solar cells with p- and n-type hydrogenated silicon oxide layers

Mixed-phase hydrogenated silicon oxide (SiOx:H) is applied to thin-film hydrogenated amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe:H) solar cells serving as both p-doped and n-doped layers. The bandgap of p-SiOx:H is adjusted to achieve a highly-transparent window layer while also providing a strong electric field. Bandgap grading of n-SiOx:H is designed to obtain a smooth transition of the energy band e...

Microsecond minority carrier lifetimes in HWCVD-grown films and implications for thin film solar cells

We determine the minority carrier lifetimes of nearly intrinsic Si films 1.5–15 Am thick grown by HWCVD at 300 -C on Si (100) and large-grained polycrystalline templates formed by selective nucleation and solid-phase epitaxy (SNSPE) using resonant-coupled photoconductive decay (RCPCD). Although the microstructure of these films is mostly microcrystalline, minority carrier lifetimes for films on...

Photoconductive Lifetime of CdS Used in Thin-Film Solar Cells

Thin-film CdS is used as a window layer in most of the current thin-film polycrystalline device technologies including absorbers based on cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium selenide (CIS) and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). Device performance has been linked to the deposition technique and posttreatment of the CdS layer. Here we used the radio frequency photoconductive decay (RFP...

Plasmonic light trapping in thin-film Si solar cells

Plasmonic nanostructures have been recently investigated as a possible way to improve absorption of light in solar cells. The strong interaction of small metal nanostructures with light allows control over the propagation of light at the nanoscale and thus the design of ultrathin solar cells in which light is trapped in the active layer and efficiently absorbed. In this paper we review some of ...

Novel High-Efficiency Crystalline-Si-Based Compound Heterojunction Solar Cells: HCT (Heterojunction with Compound Thin-layer)