Intermittent Very High Frequency Plasma Deposition on Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells Enabling High Conversion Efficiency
نویسندگان
چکیده
Stopping the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) once and maintaining the film in a vacuum for 30 s were performed. This was done several times during the formation of a film of i-layer microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) used in thin-film silicon tandem solar cells. This process aimed to reduce defect regions which occur due to collision with neighboring grains as the film becomes thicker. As a result, high crystallinity (Xc) of μc-Si:H was obtained. Eventually, a solar cell using this process improved the conversion efficiency by 1.3% (0.14 points), compared with a normal-condition cell. In this paper, we propose an easy method to improve the conversion efficiency with PECVD.
منابع مشابه
Fast Deposited Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells
Microcrystalline silicon solar cells with AM 1.5 conversion efficiency above 5 % have been deposited at deposition rates in excess of 10 Å/s. This is achieved by VHF-GD at an excitation frequency of 130 MHz. By increasing the plasma power at a dilution ratio of 7.5 % silane/(silane+hydrogen) there first appears a morphological transition from a-Si:H to μc-Si:H and then an increase in deposition...
متن کاملInfluence of pressure and silane depletion on microcrystalline silicon material quality and solar cell performance
Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon growth by very high frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is investigated in an industrial-type parallel plate R&D KAITM reactor to study the influence of pressure and silane depletion on material quality. Single junction solar cells with intrinsic layers prepared at high pressures and in high silane depletion conditions exhibit remarkable imp...
متن کاملAmorphous solar cells, the micromorph concept and the role of VHF-GD deposition technique
During the last two decades, the Institute of Microtechnology (IMT) has contributed in two important fields to future thin-film silicon solar cell processing and design: (1) In 1987, IMT introduced the so-called ‘‘very high frequency glow discharge (VHF-GD)’’ technique, a method that leads to a considerable enhancement in the deposition rate of amorphous and microcrystalline silicon layers. As ...
متن کاملRadial n-i-p structure SiNW-based microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells on flexible stainless steel
Radial n-i-p structure silicon nanowire (SiNW)-based microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells on stainless steel foil was fabricated by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The SiNW solar cell displays very low optical reflectance (approximately 15% on average) over a broad range of wavelengths (400 to 1,100 nm). The initial SiNW-based microcrystalline (μc-Si:H) thin-film solar cell...
متن کاملMicrostructure and open-circuit voltage of nÀiÀp microcrystalline silicon solar cells
A series of microcrystalline silicon n2i2p solar cells has been deposited by very high frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at various values of silane to hydrogen source gas ratio and on two different substrate types. Relationships between microstructure and electrical characteristics of these solar cells are investigated by transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microsc...
متن کامل