The {open_quotes}Micromorph{close_quotes} cell: a new way to high-efficiency-low-temperature crystalline silicon thin-film cell manufacturing?
- Institut de Microtechnique, A.-L. Breguet 2, Universite de Neuchatel, CH-2000 Neuchatel (Switzerland)
- University of Konstanz, D-78434 Konstanz (Germany)
Hydrogenated microcrystalline Silicon ({mu}c-Si:H) produced by the VHF-GD (Very High Frequency Glow Discharge) process can be considered to be a new base material for thin-film crystalline silicon solar cells. The most striking feature of such cells, in contrast to conventional amorphous silicon technology, is their stability under light-soaking. With respect to crystalline silicon technology, their most striking advantage is their low process temperature (220{degree}C). The so called {open_quotes}micromorph{close_quotes} cell contains such a {mu}c-Si:H based cell as bottom cell, whereas the top-cell consists of amorphous silicon. A stable efficiency of 10.7{percent} (confirmed by ISE Freiburg) is reported in this paper. At present, all solar cell concepts based on thin-film crystalline silicon have a common problem to overcome: namely, too long manufacturing times. In order to help in solving this problem for the particular case of plasma-deposited {mu}c-Si:H, results on combined argon/hydrogen dilution of the feedgas (silane) are presented. It is shown that rates as high as 9.4 {Angstrom}/s can be obtained: furthermore, a first solar cell deposited with 8.7 {Angstrom}/s resulted in an efficiency of 3.1{percent}. {copyright} {ital 1997 American Institute of Physics.}
- OSTI ID:
- 552833
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-961178--
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 394; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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