Abstract
We investigated p-i-n solar cells with microcrystalline absorber but amorphous contact layers. Fill factor and open circuit voltage depend sensitively on the p/i interface. Using an optimized design of the p/i interface, cells with fill factors up to 65% and open circuit voltages of 0.45 V were deposited on amorphous p-layers. They are comparable to cells on micro- crystalline p-layers. A further increase of the open circuit voltage was achieved by variation of the p/i interface treatment but up to now it was accompanied by a decrease of the fill factor. We attribute this effect to a thin undoped amorphous layer at the p/i interface. Under non-optimized deposition conditions an amorphous instead of a microcrystalline silicon layer is grown at the p/i interface which can be detected by Raman measurements on cell structures. While the proper design of the p/i interface is crucial for the cell performance we did not observe significant differences between cells with amorphous and microcrystalline n-layers. The results reveal that the open circuit voltage is limited by the bulk properties of the undoped microcrystalline silicon.
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This work was supported in part by NEDO as part of the New Sunshine Program under MITI.
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Siebke, F., Yata, S., Hishikawa, Y. et al. Performance of fuc-Si:H Solar Cells with Amorphous P-Layer. MRS Online Proceedings Library 507, 517–522 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-507-517
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-507-517