Hydrogen plasma treatment for improving bulk passivation quality of c-Si solar cells

ABSTRACTA hydrogen-plasma treatment has been used for the first time to fabricate wide-gap, high-quality a-Si:H films. The hydrogen content (CH) of a-Si:H films substantially increases by the hydrogen-plasma treatment after deposition, without deteriorating the opto-electric properties of the films. The photoconductivity (σph) of ≥ 10-5 ο-1 cm-1, photosensitivity ( σ ph/σ d) of > 106 and SiH2/SiH of <0.2 are achieved for a film with CH of ∼25 atomic >%. The optical gap of the film is > 1.70 eV by the (α h ν )1/3 plot, and is >2 eV by the Tauc's plot. The open circuit voltage of a-Si solar cells exceeds 1 V conserving the fill factor of > 0.7 when the wide-gap a∼Si:H films are used as the i-layer, which proves the wide band gap and low defect density.

Download Full-text

Thin-Film Polycrystalline-Silicon Solar Cells on Ceramic Substrates Made by Aluminum-Induced Crystallization and Thermal CVD

MRS Proceedings ◽

10.1557/proc-0910-a23-04 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 910 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ivan Gordon ◽

Dries Van Gestel ◽

Lode Carnel ◽

Kris Van Nieuwenhuysen ◽

Guy Beaucarne ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Cells ◽

Polycrystalline Silicon ◽

Substrate Roughness ◽

Ceramic Substrates ◽

Thermal Cvd ◽

Si Solar Cells ◽

Thin Polycrystalline ◽

Induced Crystallization ◽

Aluminum Induced Crystallization

AbstractA considerable cost reduction could be achieved in photovoltaics if efficient solar cells could be made from thin polycrystalline-silicon (pc-Si) layers. Aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) of amorphous silicon followed by epitaxial thickening is an effective way to obtain large-grained pc-Si layers with excellent properties for solar cells. To obtain efficient solar cells, the electronic quality of the pc-Si material obtained by AIC has to be optimized and the cell design has to be adapted to the material. In this paper, we report on pc-Si solar cells made by AIC in combination with thermal CVD on ceramic alumina substrates. We made pc-Si solar cells on alumina substrates that showed Voc values up to 533 mV and efficiencies up to 5.9%. This is the highest efficiency ever achieved with pc-Si solar cells on ceramic substrates where no (re)melting of silicon was used. We demonstrate that the quality of the pc-Si material can be improved drastically by reducing the substrate roughness using spin-on oxides. We further show that a-Si/c-Si heterojunctions lead to much higher Voc values than diffused homojunctions. A cell concept that incorporates spin-on oxides and heterojunction emitters is therefore best suited to obtain efficient pc-Si solar cells on alumina substrates.

Download Full-text

Dry Passivation Process for Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells Using Hydrogen Plasma Treatment Followed by In Situ a-Si:H Deposition

IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics ◽

10.1109/jphotov.2018.2871329 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (6) ◽

pp. 1539-1545 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Menglei Xu ◽

Chong Wang ◽

Twan Bearda ◽

Eddy Simoen ◽

Hariharsudan Sivaramakrishnan Radhakrishnan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Cells ◽

Plasma Treatment ◽

Hydrogen Plasma ◽

Heterojunction Solar Cells ◽

Passivation Process ◽

Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Download Full-text

Influence of hydrogen plasma passivation on electrical and spectral characteristics of GaN nanowires / Si solar cells

Journal of Physics Conference Series ◽

10.1088/1742-6596/1124/4/041021 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1124 ◽

pp. 041021

Author(s):

K U Shugurov ◽

A M Mozharov ◽

V V Fedorov ◽

A D Bolshakov ◽

G A Sapunov ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Cells ◽

Hydrogen Plasma ◽

Spectral Characteristics ◽

Gan Nanowires ◽

Si Solar Cells ◽

Plasma Passivation

Download Full-text

Mechanism of the Improvement in Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells by Hydrogen Plasma Treatment

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.773.118 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 773 ◽

pp. 118-123

Author(s):

Jing Yan Li ◽

Xiang Bo Zeng ◽

Hao Li ◽

Xiao Bing Xie ◽

Ping Yang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Cells ◽

Electric Field ◽

Plasma Treatment ◽

Defect Density ◽

Hydrogen Plasma ◽

Microcrystalline Silicon ◽

One Dimensional ◽

Long Wavelength ◽

Drift Length ◽

Experimental Improvement

We explain the experimental improvement in long wavelength response by hydrogen plasma treatment (HPT) in n/i interface. The absorption coefficient of the intrinsic microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si) is decreased in the low energy region (0.8~1.0 eV) by HPT, which indicates a lower defect density in μc-Si layer deposited with HPT than its counterpart without HPT. Simulation by one-dimensional device simulation program for the Analysis of Microelectronic and Photonic Structures (AMPS-1D) shows a higher long wavelength response in μc-Si solar cell if the defect density in intrinsic μc-Si layer is smaller. Our simulation results also disclose that the less defect density in intrinsic layer, the lower recombination rate and the higher electric field is. Higher electric field results in longer drift length which will promote collection of carriers generated by photons with long wavelength. Thus we deduce that HPT decreased defect density in absorber layer and improved the performance of μc-Si solar cells in long wavelength response.

Download Full-text