Performance of heterojunction solar cells with different intrinsic a-Si:H thin layers deposited by RF- and VHF-PECVD

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics Vol. 32; no. 20; pp. 25327 - 25331
• Main Authors: Wang, Jianqiang, Ru, Xiaoning, Ruan, Tianyu, Hu, Yunfei, Zhang, Yongzhe, Yan, Hui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.10.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Amorphous silicon; Carrier lifetime; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Fourier transforms; Heterojunctions; Infrared spectroscopy; Materials Science; Microstructure; Minority carriers; Optical and Electronic Materials; Photovoltaic cells; Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition; Radio frequency; Solar cells; Spectroellipsometry; Thickness; Thin films; Very high frequencies
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-021-06991-3

The effect of plasma excitation frequency on the performance of intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films and heterojunction solar cells by radio-frequency (RF, 13.56 MH Z ) and very-high-frequency (VHF, 40 MH Z ) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) have been investigated. The thickness and microstructure of intrinsic a-Si:H films were measured by spectroscopic ellipsometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The a-Si:H/c-Si interface passivation quality were determined by minority carrier lifetime and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The current–voltage (I–V) performance of the HJT solar cells were also evaluated. The results reveal that a-Si:H films developed by RF-PECVD with a large area of parallel-plate reactors (> 1 m 2 ) exhibit better thickness uniformity, lower microstructure factor, and higher minority carrier lifetimes. Hence HJT solar cells have achieved efficiency of 24.9%, compared with cell efficiency of 24.6% with intrinsic a-Si:H films developed by VHF-PECVD.