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Title: Research on the Stability, Electronic Properties, and Structure of a-Si:H and Its Alloys: Annual Subcontract Report, 1 June 1992 - 31 May 1993

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10131211· OSTI ID:10131211

This report describes work focusing on the defect and transport properties of a-Si:H with particular emphasis on defect metastability. Light-induced defects remain the major impediment to higher stabilized solar cell efficiencies. The many years of research have shown that this is a difficult problem to solve, and we take the view that a solution can be found only with a deep understanding of the mechanism; this has been our main goal. The metastability is closely related to the intrinsic defect properties, so these studies have also led to a greatly improved model of all the electronic properties of a-Si:H. Section A of the report discusses a theoretical analysis of the defect pool model for the equilibrium dark defect density, with particular reference to whether there are significant charged defects. Section B discusses the use of an electronic transport model to analyze forward and reverse currents and extends it to the calculation of field dependences of bulk and contact currents, which give more precision to the analysis of defects from reverse bias thermal generation currents. Electronic transport is discussed in Section C. Work done on H transport and bonding is described in Section D.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
10131211
Report Number(s):
NREL/TP-451-6192; ON: DE94000292; BR: WM1020000
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: Feb 1994
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English