Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Modeling, Materials and Device Technology

Schropp, R.E.I.; Zeman, Miro

doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-5631-2

Cited by 285 publications

(236 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

227

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…2b) were taken from Schropp and Zeman [6], with the exceptions that all the a-Si:H layers have an assumed bandgap of 1.78 eV, electron affinity of 4 eV, a relative permittivity of 11.9, and the peak dangling bond concentration in the intrinsic region was set to 5 x 10 17 cm -3 . In addition, we added a distributed series resistance of 15 Ω cm 2 to reproduce the slope of the current-voltage curve near open circuit.…”

Section: Electrical Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar cell efficiency enhancement via light trapping in printable resonant dielectric nanosphere arrays

Grandidier

Weitekamp

Deceglie

et al. 2012

Physica Status Solidi (a)

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Silica nanosphere functionalizationSilica spheres of 700 nm diameter were obtained from Polysciences Inc. as a 10% (by weight) suspension in water. This suspension was filtered on a fine filtration frit, rinsed with tetrahydrofuran and acetone. The powder of spheres was washed with 10 mL of 1:1 methanol/HCl, and rinsed again with acetone. The mostly dried powder was then heated in an oven for 5 minutes at 110 °C and dried under vacuum overnight. To 25 mL toluene in a 50 mL round-bottomed flask, 786 mg of dry silica spheres were suspended and stirred. To this suspension was added 1 mL 3-aminopropyl(diethoxy)methyl silane. The suspension was stirred 72 hours, filtered on a fine frit, rinsed with toluene and dried in vacuo to yield 756 mg dry, amine-functionalized silica spheres. Langmuir-Blodgett depositionA ~1% (by weight) suspension for Langmuir-Blodgett deposition was prepared by suspending 235 mg of functionalized silica spheres in a solution of 4 mL ethanol and 17 mL methylene chloride. We first perform an isotherm measurement where we record the surface pressure of the water as a function of the surface area, which is reduced using the compression barriers of the LB trough. When the area of the trough is large, the surface pressure of the water is around 4 mN/m. The spheres are freely spread on the surface of the water. This is the so-called "gaseous" state. While the LB trough's barriers compress the spheres and reduce the area where the spheres stand on, the surface pressure slowly increases until 5 mN/m. The slope abruptly increases until 10 mN/m. This is the "liquid" state corresponding to a dense and condensed monolayer of hexagonally close packed spheres at the surface of the water. Upon further compression, the slope of the curve decreases and the monolayer collapses into multilayer structures. For our purpose, the optimal point is at the middle of the "liquid" condensed state where the spheres are well close packed and still form a monolayer. This point is reached when the surface pressure is around 7.5 mN/m. In a second step, knowing the optimal surface pressure for the deposition, we perform a dipping experiment. While the spheres are on the surface of the water in the "gaseous" state, we immerse the substrate into the LB trough. We then close the LB's barriers until the surface pressure reaches 7.5 mN/m. From that point, we slowly pull up the substrate at a rate of 1 mm/min while simultaneously keeping the surface pressure constant with a computer controlled feedback system between the electrobalance measuring of the surface pressure and the barrier moving mechanism. Consequently, the floating hexagonally close packed monolayer is adsorbed on the ITO surface. When the structure is totally removed from the water, the part that was initially immersed in the water is coated by a large area of nanoscale dielectric nanospheres on its entire surface. Transfer printing preparationPoly(vinyl alcohol) (avg. MW = 10,000 g/mol, 88% hydrolyzed, Sigma Aldrich) was spin cast from an aqueous solution containing ...

show abstract

Section: Electrical Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar cell efficiency enhancement via light trapping in printable resonant dielectric nanosphere arrays

Grandidier

Weitekamp

Deceglie

et al. 2012

Physica Status Solidi (a)

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These complex structures can reach higher conversion efficiencies than single cells due to a more efficient utilization of the solar spectrum and to the improved collection of photogenerated carriers. 1 In particular the concept of the micromorph tandem solar cell that combines amorphous hydrogenated silicon ͑a-Si: H͒ with microcrystalline silicon ͑ c-Si͒ has become a promising strategy due to its simplicity in the design and to its good performance. 2 The micromorph cell does not incorporate any silicon alloys in the absorber layers; it has the optimal bandgap combination for terrestrial applications, and it is quite stable to light induced degradation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring dark current voltage characteristics of micromorph silicon tandem cells with computer simulations

Sturiale

Li²,

Rath³

et al. 2009

Journal of Applied Physics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The transport mechanisms controlling the forward dark current-voltage characteristic of the silicon micromorph tandem solar cell were investigated with numerical modeling techniques. The dark current-voltage characteristics of the micromorph tandem structure at forward voltages show three regions: two with an exponential dependence and a third where the current grows more slowly with the applied voltage. In the first exponential region the current is entirely controlled by recombination through gap states of the top cell. In the second exponential region the current is controlled by the mixture of recombination through gap states of both the top and bottom cells and by free carrier diffusion along the a-Si: H intrinsic layer. In the third region the onset of the electron space charge limited current on the a-Si: H top cell can be observed along with some other mechanisms that are discussed in the paper. The high forward dark J-V curve of the tandem cell can be used as diagnosis tool to quickly inspect the efficiency of the recombination junction in recombining the electron-hole pairs generated under illumination in the top and bottom cells. The dark current at high forward voltages is highly influenced by the amount of electron-hole pairs thermally generated inside the recombination junction.

show abstract

“…Therefore, we carried out the simulation study using the ASA program to confirm or reject the presence of inversion layer in the studied samples. For simulation we have chosen parameters of the amorphous silicon taken from the literature [5]. The simulated band diagram of the aSi:H(i)/c-Si(p) heterostructure is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Capacitance-voltage Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capacitance Analysis of the Structures with the a-Si:H(i)/c-Si(p) Heterojunction for Solar-Cell Applications

Mikolášek

Jakaboviš

Řeháček

et al. 2014

Journal of Electrical Engineering

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper we present the capacitance study of the intrinsic amorphous silicon/crystalline silicon heterostructure with the aim to gain insight on the heterointerface properties of a passivated silicon heterojunction solar cell. It is shown that due to the high density of defect states in the amorphous layer the structure has to be analyzed as a heterojunction. Using the analysis, the following values have been determined: conduction-band offset of 0.13 eV, electron affinity of 3.92 eV, and density of defect states in the intrinsic amorphous silicon being that of 4.14 X 1021m—3.

show abstract

Amorphous and Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Modeling, Materials and Device Technology

Cited by 285 publications

References 0 publications

Solar cell efficiency enhancement via light trapping in printable resonant dielectric nanosphere arrays

Solar cell efficiency enhancement via light trapping in printable resonant dielectric nanosphere arrays

Exploring dark current voltage characteristics of micromorph silicon tandem cells with computer simulations

Capacitance Analysis of the Structures with the a-Si:H(i)/c-Si(p) Heterojunction for Solar-Cell Applications

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About