Lawyer, and Anthony Canning, graduate students; and Brittany Huie, under graduate student. The samples were obtained from Team members at USOC, BPSolar and the a-Si group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

We use micro-Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy to study the effects of an a-Si:H buffer layer at the i/p interface of the mixed-phase silicon solar cells. We find that the signature of the crystalline 520 cm -1 mode still appears on the Raman spectrum for the cells with a 100 Å thick a-Si:H buffer layer; but it completely disappears for cells with a 500 Å thick a-Si:H buffer layer. At 80 K, the PL spectral lineshape reflects the features of the electronic states in the band tails. The characteristics of the PL spectra of the mixed-phase cells are a narrower main band than the standard a-Si:H band and an extra low energy band from the grain boundary region. As the thickness of the a-Si:H buffer layer increases, the PL main band becomes broader, and the low energy band is depressed. We find that, after light soaking, the PL main band is slightly broadened for the cells with no a-Si:H buffer layer, almost no change for the cells with a 100 Å thick buffer layer, and a remarkable decrease in total PL intensity for the cells with a 500 Å thick buffer layer. In addition, the PL intensity of the defect band increases after light soaking for the cells with a 500 Å thick buffer layer, where light-induced defect generation in the a-Si:H buffer layer masks the changes in the mixed-phase intrinsic layer. The Raman and PL results are consistent with previous observations of the effect of an a-Si:H buffer layer on the performance and metastability against light soaking for mixed-phase solar cells.