Effects of the undoped layer on characteristics of amorphous silicon Schottky diodes

Influence of pin Amorphous Silicon Stack Deposition Sequence on Solar Cell Performance and Degradation

“…Due to the incomplete removal of the dopant residue left from the previous thin film deposition, the i-layer in the pin stack is actually a p − layer and the i-layer in the nip stack is an n − layer. [10][11][12][13] The lightly doped i-layer causes the shift of the junction at the i-n + (in p + p − n + ) or i-p + (in n + n − p + ) interface, which affects the solar cell function. According to literature reports, [15][16][17] the p + p − n + cell has a higher solar cell efficiency than the n + n − p + cell mainly due to the higher V OC .…”

“…The a-Si:H cell deteriorated from the electric stress could be restored to its original state after being annealed at a temperature higher than 150 • C. 1,9 A-Si:H solar cells with the pin or nip tri-layer structure prepared by the plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process in the same chamber usually suffer from the unintentional contamination of the i-layer from the dopant residue left from the prior film deposition step. [10][11][12][13][14] The dopant contamination of the i-layer has also been observed in the multi-chamber PECVD process where the dopant diffusion occurred from the plasma-induced damage to a previous deposited thin film during the i-layer deposition. 14 Since the material property of the i-layer is critical to the cell performance, the deposition sequence of the a-Si:H tri-layer can affect the cell's electrical and opto-electrical characteristics.…”