Structural and Optical Study of Titanium Dioxide thin Films Elaborated by APCVD for Application in Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

In this work, titanium dioxide (TiO 2) thin films have been deposited on glass and monocrystalline silicon by Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (APCVD) technique using titanium tetrachloride TiCl 4 as precursor. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the prepared TiO 2 thin films were evaluated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Four Point Probe (FPP) and Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (SE), respectively. These properties were exploited for application of the TiO 2 layers as antireflection coatings on monocrystalline silicon solar cells. Our experimental results show that the deposited TiO 2 thin films were polycrystalline, homogenous, compact and relatively smooth. The measured average optical transmittance of the TiO 2 films was about 85-90%. From the ellipsometry analysis, the refractive index of our TiO 2 thin films was found to be n=2,25 at the wavelength λ= 550 nm, with a thickness of 56,2 nm. These experimental results obtained by APCVD are in excellent agreement with the computed results of the TiO 2 refractive index and thickness required for a high quality antireflection coating in industrial conditions. The obtained results demonstrate the real opportunity of the APCVD technique to prepare high quality antireflection coatings for crystalline solar cells. This indicates that the APCVD antireflection coatings may have a high potential industrial application.

Synthesis of Nanostructure TiO2 Films Using Different Applied Powers of Pulsed Magnetron Sputtering

“…This is due to the reduction in the scattering of the carriers at the grain boundaries and hence resistivity [13].It is interesting to note that the good conductivity of TiO 2 films is very compatible with the conductivity requirements of TCO for application as ARC in solar cells [25].…”