Thin crystalline silicon solar cells based on epitaxial films grown at 165°C by RF-PECVD

Thin crystalline silicon solar cells based on epitaxial films grown at 165°C by RF-PECVD

We report on heterojunction solar cells whose thin intrinsic crystalline absorber layer has been obtained by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at 165°C on highly doped p-type (100) crystalline silicon substrates. We have studied the effect of the epitaxial intrinsic layer thickness in the range from 1 to 2.4 μm. This absorber is responsible for photo-generated current whereas highly dop...

Epitaxial Thin Film Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells on low Cost Silicon Carriers

In order to substantially reduce the costs of present crystalline Si solar cells, the material consumption of highly pure Si in a typical solar cell structure should be reduced. Most of the crystalline Si material merely acts as a mechanical carrier for the solar cell device with most of the optical absorption taking place in the upper 30μm region. When special care is taken to maximize optical...

Feasibility of using thin crystalline silicon films epitaxially grown at 165 °C in solar cells: A computer simulation study

We have previously reported on the successful deposition of heterojunction solar cells whose thin intrinsic crystalline absorber layer is grown using the standard radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition process at 165 ◦C on highly doped P-type (100) crystalline silicon substrates. The structure had an N-doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon emitter deposited on top of the intr...

Thin-film crystalline silicon solar cells

A photoelectric conversion efficiency of over 10% has been achieved in thin-film polycrystalline silicon solar cells which consists of a 2 μm thick layer of polycrystalline silicon with a very small grain size (microcrystalline silicon) formed by low-temperature plasma CVD. This has shown that if the recombination velocity at grain boundaries can be made very small, then it is not necessarily i...

Crystalline Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells