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High-Efficiency Microcrystalline Silicon and Microcrystalline Silicon-Germanium Alloy Solar Cells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2011

Takuya Matsui  and
Michio Kondo
Takuya Matsui
Affiliation:
Research Center for Photovoltaic Technologies, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8568, Japan
Michio Kondo
Affiliation:
Research Center for Photovoltaic Technologies, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8568, Japan
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Abstract

This paper presents our material studies on hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) and microcrystalline silicon-germanium alloy (μc-Si1-xGex:H) thin films for the development of high efficiency p-i-n junction solar cells. In μc-Si:H solar cells, we have evaluated the structural properties of the intrinsic μc-Si:H layers grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at high deposition rates (>2 nm/s). Several design criteria for the device grade μc-Si:H are proposed in terms of crystallographic orientation, grain size and grain boundary passivation. Meanwhile, in μc-Si1-xGex:H solar cells, we have succeeded in boosting the infrared response of solar cell upon Ge incorporation up to x∼0.2. Nevertheless, a degradation of solar cell parameters is observed for large Ge contents (x>0.2) and thick i-layers (> 1 μm), which is attributed to the influence of the Ge dangling bonds that act as acceptorlike states in undoped μc-Si1-xGex:H. To improve the device performance, we introduce an oxygen doping technique to compensate the native defect acceptors in μc-Si1-xGex:H p-i-n solar cells.

Keywords

photovoltaicSiGe
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1321: Symposium A – Amorphous and Polycrystalline Thin-Film Silicon Science and Technology , 2011 , mrss11-1321-a01-06
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2011

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