High-Performance, Tandem-Type Amorphous Silicon Solar Cell

Microcrystalline silicon oxide (μc-SiO) deposited from the gas mixture of silane and carbondioxide using VHF plasma was reported by authors to be the promising material for thin-film silicon solar cell fabricated on glass substrate, comparing with the conventional amorphous silicon oxide or microcrystalline silicon p-layer. High-performance, tandem-type solar cell with amorphous and microcrystalline cells (double cells) has been achieved by ap-plying this μc-SiO to the p-layer of both cells.Further work has been extended to a-Si tandem type solar cell with triple cell configu-ration using amorphous silicon oxide (a-SiO), amorphous silicon germanium (a-SiGe) and microcrystalline Si (μc-Si) as the top, middle and bottom cells, respectively. Up to now, cell efficiency of 15.7 % has been achieved using this novel μc-SiO.