Premium
Microcrystalline silicon thin film solar cells with microcrystalline silicon carbide window layers and silicon absorber layers both prepared by Hot‐Wire CVD
Author(s) -
Chen Tao,
Huang Yuelong,
Yang Deren,
Carius Reinhard,
Finger Friedhelm
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
physica status solidi (rrl) – rapid research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.786
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1862-6270
pISSN - 1862-6254
DOI - 10.1002/pssr.200903423
Subject(s) - materials science , microcrystalline , plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition , chemical vapor deposition , silicon , solar cell , layer (electronics) , nanocrystalline silicon , silicon carbide , optoelectronics , crystalline silicon , thin film , open circuit voltage , nanotechnology , amorphous silicon , composite material , voltage , chemistry , crystallography , physics , quantum mechanics
Abstract Microcrystalline silicon carbide (μc‐SiC:H) window layers prepared by Hot‐Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition (HWCVD) were applied in thin film silicon solar cells with microcrystalline silicon (μc‐Si:H) absorber layers. The intrinsic μc‐Si:H absorber was prepared by HWCVD or Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) over a wide range of crystalline volume fractions. With both types of absorber layers high solar cell short circuit current densities ( j SC ) can be obtained due to the highly transparent μc‐SiC:H window layer and better optical matching. Using the μc‐Si:H absorber prepared by HWCVD yields an additional improvement in the open circuit voltage ( V OC ) of about 20 mV. A 1 μm thick μc‐Si:H cell was obtained with V OC = 549 mV and j SC = 25.6 mA/cm 2 resulting in an efficiency of 9.2%. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)