Hole Mobility Limit of Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells

We present temperature-dependent measurements and modeling for a thickness series of hydrogenated amorphous silicon nip solar cells. The comparison indicates that the maximum power density PMAX from the as-deposited cells has achieved the hole-mobility limit established by valence bandtail trapping, and PMAX is thus not significantly limited by intrinsic-layer dangling bonds or by the doped layers and interfaces. Measurements of the temperature-dependent properties of light-soaked cells show that the properties of as-deposited and light-soaked cells converge below 250 K; a model perturbing the valence band tail traps with a density of dangling bonds accounts adequately for the convergence effect. © 2006 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2170405