Transparent conducting oxide layers for thin film silicon solar cells

Impurity-doped ZnO Thin Films Prepared by Physical Deposition Methods Appropriate for Transparent Electrode Applications in Thin-film Solar Cells

“…At the present time, AZO and B-doped ZnO (BZO) thin films are in practical use for transparent electrode applications in CuIn 1-X Ga X Se 2 -based thin-film solar cells [9][10][11][12]. In addition, impurity-doped ZnO thin films, such as AZO, GZO and BZO with a textured surface structure as well as a high transmittance in the near-infrared region, have recently attracted much attention for transparent electrode applications in Si-based thin-film solar cells [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. It is necessary to form impurity-doped ZnO thin films with a doubly textured surface structure that can effectively scatter the incident visible and near-infrared light [25].…”

Fabrication and characterization of nanorod solar cells with an ultrathin a-Si:H absorber layer

“…One solution to relieve the trade-off between light absorption and carrier collection is the usage of an extremely thin absorber layer (ETA) on structured substrate, which can keep a significant amount of optical absorption but remarkably reduce charge carriers recombination [9][10][11]. An alternative approach is enhancing light trapping by employing a surface texture such as that of natively textured commercially available SnO 2 :F or as that made by hydrochloric acid etching of ZnO:Al [12,13] for superstrate p-i-n structures, or that of structured Ag back electrodes in substrate n-i-p structures [14]. In these types of structures, the incident light is scattered into off-normal angles; therefore the optical path length in the absorber layer is increased and light absorption is enhanced.…”

A novel structured plastic substrate for light confinement in thin film silicon solar cells by a geometric optical effect

“…Angular dependence of the transmitted light (measured with a 632.8 nm HeNe laser, light entering from the flat surface) from these pyramidal textured substrates showed only sharp interference peaks (Fig. 2), unlike the angular resolved scattering (ARS) that one observes for conventional textured TCO substrates, such as Asahi U-type SnO 2 :F coated glass [13].…”

“…The substrate temperature was controlled by the set temperature of the heater. ZnO:Al was deposited by a magnetron sputtering system called Salsa [13] from a ZnO:0.5% Al 2 O 3 target for the front contact and ZnO:2% Al 2 O 3 target for the back reflector, whereas the metal layers (Ag and Al) were deposited by thermal evaporation. Thickness and optical properties (band gap, absorption coefficient, etc.)…”

“…Normally, for thin film solar cells, random textures of very low dimensions with scattering properties are used [13]. The analysis of the optical effects of those features is very complex.…”