Influence of pressure and silane depletion on microcrystalline silicon material quality and solar cell performance

Bugnon, G.; Feltrin, A.; Meillaud, Fanny; Bailat, J.; Ballif, Christophe

doi:10.1063/1.3095488

Cited by 30 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…9 Moreover, ZnO is chemically and thermally stable in hydrogen-containing plasmas, which are employed, in the presence of SiH 4 gas, for the deposition of silicon-based thin film p-i-n junctions. [10][11][12][13] Therefore, impurity-doped ZnO, e.g., ZnO:Al, is considered to be an attractive candidate to replace ITO. 8 There are several deposition techniques applied to synthesize ZnO, such as sol-gel, 14 spray pyrolisis, 15 magnetron sputtering, [16][17][18] pulsed laser deposition, 19,20 atomic layer deposition, 21,22 and metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MO-CVD).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlling the resistivity gradient in aluminum-doped zinc oxide grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Ponomarev

Verheijen

Keuning

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

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Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication:• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website.• The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review.• The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication Citation for published version (APA):Ponomarev, M., Verheijen, M. A., Keuning, W., Sanden, van de, M. C. M., & Creatore, M. (2012). Controlling the resistivity gradient in aluminum-doped zinc oxide grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Journal of Applied Physics, 112(4), 043708-1/7. [043708]. DOI: 10.1063/1.4747942 General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Aluminum-doped ZnO (ZnO:Al) grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) generally exhibit a major drawback, i.e., a gradient in resistivity extending over a large range of film thickness. The present contribution addresses the plasma-enhanced CVD deposition of ZnO:Al layers by focusing on the control of the resistivity gradient and providing the solution towards thin ( 300 nm) ZnO:Al layers, exhibiting a resistivity value as low as 4 Â 10 À4 X cm. The approach chosen in this work is to enable the development of several ZnO:Al crystal orientations at the initial stages of the CVD-growth, which allow the formation of a densely packed structure exhibiting a grain size of 60-80 nm for a film thickness of 95 nm. By providing an insight into the growth of ZnO:Al layers, the present study allows exploring their application into several solar cell technologies. Highly conducting (doped) ZnO thin films are being used in diverse applications, such as light-emitting 1 and laser diodes, 2 architectural and automotive glazing, 3 thin-film transistors, 4,5 and high efficiency thin-film solar cells. 6 This latter makes use of ZnO as transparent conducting oxide (TCO), whe...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlling the resistivity gradient in aluminum-doped zinc oxide grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Ponomarev

Verheijen

Keuning

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Physics

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“…The preparation and experimental characterization of the cells have been described in detail in Refs. [21][22][23]. As front and back electrode, both cells use lightly doped ZnO deposited by low-pressure chemical vapor deposition with a thickness of 4.8 lm.…”

Section: A Experimentalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extended light scattering model incorporating coherence for thin-film silicon solar cells

Lanz¹,

Ruhstaller²,

Battaglia³

et al. 2011

Journal of Applied Physics

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We present a comprehensive scalar light-scattering model for the optical simulation of silicon thin film solar cells. The model integrates coherent light propagation in thin layers with a direct, noniterative treatment of light scattered at rough layer interfaces. The direct solution approach ensures computational efficiency, which is a key advantage for extensive calculations in the context of evaluation of different cell designs and parameter extraction. We validate the model with experimental external quantum efficiency spectra of state-of-the-art microcrystalline silicon solar cells. The simulations agree very well with measurements for cells deposited on both rough and flat substrates. The model is then applied to study the influence of the absorber layer thickness on the maximum achievable photocurrent for the two cell types. This efficient numerical framework will enable a quantitative model-based assessment of the optimization potential for light trapping in textured thin film silicon solar cells.

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“…For this we used a moderate total flow rate and input power densities between 0.25 and 0.35 W/cm 2 , and a pressure of a few mbar, taking advantage of residence times on the order of a second. Extensive studies of this regime were performed in our KAI-S reactor with 25 mm standard inter-electrode gap [39]. The highest efficiency reported for a mc-Si:H single-junction cell deposited at rates as high as 1 nm/s is h ¼ 6% with V oc ¼ 0.492 V, FF ¼ 73%, J sc ¼ 16.8 mA/cm 2 [40].…”

Section: Process Conditions For Lc-si:h Deposition At 10 å /Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The highest efficiency reported for a mc-Si:H single-junction cell deposited at rates as high as 1 nm/s is h ¼ 6% with V oc ¼ 0.492 V, FF ¼ 73%, J sc ¼ 16.8 mA/cm 2 [40]. FTPS measures performed on samples deposed in KAI-S when working in processes characterized by powder formation reveal defective material [39]. The defects are likely related to the incorporation of large powder-conglomerates in the film.…”

Section: Process Conditions For Lc-si:h Deposition At 10 å /Smentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐rate deposition of microcrystalline silicon in a large‐area PECVD reactor and integration in tandem solar cells

Parascandolo

Bugnon

Feltrin

et al. 2010

Progress in Photovoltaics

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We study the high-rate deposition of microcrystalline silicon in a large-area plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor-deposition (PECVD) reactor operated at 40.68 MHz, in the little-explored process conditions of high-pressure and high-silane concentration and depletion. Due to the long gas residence time in this process, the silane gas is efficiently depleted using moderate feed-in power density, thus facilitating up-scaling of the process to large surfaces. As observed in more traditional deposition processes, the deposition rate and performance of device-quality material are limited by the inter-electrode gap of the reactor. We significantly increase the cell performances by reducing this gap. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) are used to characterize the microcrystalline material deposited in the modified reactor at a rate of 1 nm/s. Comparison with a microcrystalline process at a low deposition rate demonstrates that the crystallographic orientation of the absorbing layer of the cell and the concentrations of contaminants are strongly correlated and dependent on the process. We use microcrystalline cells with absorber layer grown at a rate of 1 nm/s integrated as bottom cells in amorphous-microcrystalline (micromorph) tandem solar cells using the superstrate configuration. We report an initial efficiency of 10.8% (9.6% stabilized) for a tandem cell with 1.2 cm 2 surface.

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Influence of pressure and silane depletion on microcrystalline silicon material quality and solar cell performance

Cited by 30 publications

References 44 publications

Controlling the resistivity gradient in aluminum-doped zinc oxide grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Controlling the resistivity gradient in aluminum-doped zinc oxide grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Extended light scattering model incorporating coherence for thin-film silicon solar cells

High‐rate deposition of microcrystalline silicon in a large‐area PECVD reactor and integration in tandem solar cells

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