Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
We have studied light-induced degradation in hydrogenated and deuterated amorphous silicon alloy solar cells in which intrinsic layers were deposited by using SiH4+H2 and SiD4+D2 gas mixtures respectively. Replacing hydrogen with deuterium in the intrinsic layer of the cell improves stability against light exposure. On the other hand, cells in which intrinsic layers were deposited from SiD4+H2 and SiH4+D2 do not show any improvement in stability. This result shows that improved stability in deuterated cell does not originate from simple replacement of hydrogen with deuterium. From deuterium/hydrogen effusion measurements, we found similar effusion at low temperature (400 °C) in both deuterated film and hydrogenated film prepared with heavy dilution. The latter film was shown to have oriented microstructure which was correlated with higher stability. This correlation strongly indicates that microstructure of the material plays a key role in improving the stability.