Impact of epitaxial growth at the heterointerface of a-Si:H/c-Si solar cells

Journal Article · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2426900· OSTI ID:20883258

Fujiwara, Hiroyuki; Kondo, Michio ^[1]

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1. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Central 2, Umezono 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568 (Japan)

The authors have demonstrated that interface structures of heterojunction solar cells consisting of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and crystalline silicon (c-Si) have quite large impact on the solar cell performance. In particular, unintentional epitaxial growth was found to occur during an intended a-Si:H i-layer growth on c-Si in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). By the formation of the epitaxial layer at the interface, the solar cell efficiency decreases significantly. Their result shows that the epitaxial layer is formed rather easily in PECVD, even without the presence of H{sub 2} gas, and may have affected many previous studies on a-Si:H/c-Si solar cells seriously.

• OSTI ID: 20883258
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 90; ISSN APPLAB; ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
CRYSTAL GROWTH
EPITAXY
HETEROJUNCTIONS
HYDROGEN
INTERFACES
LAYERS
PLASMA
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
SILICON
SOLAR CELLS