Effect of Low-Angle Grain-Boundary Passivation in Flexible Single-Crystal-Like Thin-Film GaAs Solar Cells

We theoretically and experimentally study the effect of defect-state passivation at low-angle grain boundaries (LA-GBs) on the photovoltaic performance characteristics of flexible single-crystal-like thin-film GaAs SCs. The 2D modeling of the SCs shows that LA-GBs in the single-crystal-like GaAs sti...

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Published in2021 IEEE 48th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) pp. 1789 - 1791
Main Authors Pouladi, Sara, Sharma, Sahil, Moradnia, Mina, Le, Kyle, Yarali, Miad, Favela, Carlos, Stefanov, Ognyan, Selvamanickam, Venkat, Ryou, Jae-Hyun
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 20.06.2021
Subjects
defect-state passivation
Gallium arsenide
Grain boundaries
low-angle grain boundaries
Photoluminescence
Photovoltaic cells
Plasmas
Protons
Short-circuit currents
single-crystal-like GaAs
TOP:S
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Summary:We theoretically and experimentally study the effect of defect-state passivation at low-angle grain boundaries (LA-GBs) on the photovoltaic performance characteristics of flexible single-crystal-like thin-film GaAs SCs. The 2D modeling of the SCs shows that LA-GBs in the single-crystal-like GaAs still limit their performance, especially for open-circuit voltage (V OC ), and effective passivation of the LA-GBs can boost the photo-conversion efficiency remarkably. Two physical hydrogen-based passivation techniques and a chemical sulfide treatment are employed for the passivation of the LA-GBs in the single-crystal-like GaAs. Current-voltage (I-V) and photoluminescence (PL) characterization studies demonstrate that sulfur by trioctylphosphine sulfide (TOP: S) solution passivation treatment can significantly increase PL peak intensity and the performance characteristics of flexible single-crystal-like GaAs SCs. A substantial improvement is achieved with increases of ~20%, ~10%, ~13%, and ~65% for V OC , short-circuit current (J SC ), fill factor (FF), and overall efficiency, respectively.
DOI:10.1109/PVSC43889.2021.9519115