Publication: Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) based solar cell: material characterization and optimization
All || By Area || By Year| Title | Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) based solar cell: material characterization and optimization | Authors/Editors* | A.I. Shkrebtii, Yu. V. Kryuchenko, I.M. Kupchak, F. Gaspari, A.V. Sachenko, and A. Kazakevitch |
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| Where published* | Accepted for 33rd IEEE Photovoltaic |
| How published* | Proceedings |
| Year* | 2008 |
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| Abstract |
Thin film hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is widely used for photovoltaic applications. In order to get the best possible performance of the a-Si:H solar cells it is important to (i) produce a high quality amorphous films and optimize (ii) the amorphous film and (iii) solar cells in terms their parameters such as, for instance, hydrogen concentration, mobility gap, p-, i- and n-layer doping levels, electron and hole mobilities μn and μp and their lifetime, resistance of p-, i- and n-layers, contact grid geometry and parameters of the transparent conducting and antireflecting layers. To address the above issues, we carried out a combined theoretical and experimental study of the thin a-Si:H films solar cells, grown, in particular, by the Saddle Field Glow Discharge Method. We investigated theoretically the mechanism of hydrogen diffusion inside the film, its bonding and re-bonding within the amorphous silicon network, atom vibrations and Staebler-Wronski effect. Hydrogen bonding and diffusion in a-Si:H was modeled by first-principles finite temperature molecular dynamics. Our theoretical and experimental results have been used do develop a comprehensive numerical model of optimization of photo-conversion efficiency of a-Si:H based solar cells with contact grid. In particular, the optimization was performed based on experimental carrier diffusion coefficients, carrier mobilities, parameters of the p-i-n structures, and electron band structure (defect distribution inside the gap) and others. The type of solar cell considered here is glass/SnO2/p-i-n Si:H/Al, although the approach proposed can be applied to model other types of a-Si:H thin film solar cells. |
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