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Junction Capacitance Study of a-SiGe:H Solar Cells Grown at Varying RF and VHF Deposition Rates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Peter G. Hugger ,
JinWoo Lee ,
David J. Cohen ,
Guozhen Yue ,
Xixiang Xu ,
Baojie Yan ,
Jeff Yang  and
Subhendu Guha
Peter G. Hugger
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Oregon, Physics, Eugene, Oregon, United States
JinWoo Lee
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Oregon, Physics, Eugene, Oregon, United States
David J. Cohen
Affiliation:
[email protected], University of Oregon, Physics, Eugene, Oregon, United States
Guozhen Yue
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, Troy, Michigan, United States
Xixiang Xu
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, Troy, Michigan, United States
Baojie Yan
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, Troy, Michigan, United States
Jeff Yang
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, Troy, Michigan, United States
Subhendu Guha
Affiliation:
[email protected], United Solar Ovonic LLC, Troy, Michigan, United States
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Abstract

Significant advances have been made in increasing the deposition rate of hydrogenated silicon germanium alloys (a-SiGe:H) using a modified VHF glow discharge deposition method while also maintaining good electronic properties important for its application in photovoltaic devices. We examine the electrical and optical properties of these alloys deposited either by RF (13.56MHz) or the modified VHF methods over deposition rates varying from 1 to 10 Å/s. The electronic properties of a series of 1.4 eV optical gap a-SiGe:H i-layers, in many cases in solar cell device configurations, were characterized. Drive-level capacitance profiling was used to determine the deep defect densities, and transient photocapacitance measurements allowed us to determine the Urbach energies. Results were obtained for both the annealed and light-soaked degraded states and these results were correlated to the cell performance parameters. In general the a-SiGe:H layers deposited using the modified VHF excitation exhibited improved electronic properties at higher growth rates than the RF deposited samples.

Keywords

alloyphotovoltaicSi
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1153: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin Film Silicon Science and Technology–2009 , 2009 , 1153-A07-12
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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