Crystalline Fraction and Doping Concentration Effect on Heterojunction Solar Cells <I>n</I>-Doped <I>μ</I>c-Si:H Back Surface Field Layer

Abstract

The back surface field (BSF) plays a vital role for high efficiency in the Heterojunction Intrinsic Thin (HIT) film solar cell. This paper investigated the effect of crystalline volume fraction (Xc) and 1% hydrogen diluted phosphine (PH3) gas doping concentration of the n-type µc-Si:H back surface file (BSF) layer. Initially, the thickness of the n-type µc-Si:H BSF layer was optimized. With increase in Xc from 6% to 59%, the open circuit voltage (Voc) increased from 573 mV to 696 mV, and the fill factor (FF) also increased from 59% to 71%. In the long wavelengths region (≥ 950 nm), the QE of the solar cells decreased over the optimized Xc of the n-doped micro BSF layer, due to the defects of a film. In the second part of this paper, the effect of high conductivity n-type µc-Si:H BSF layer with optimized thickness on the performance of HIT solar cells was investigated, by doping gas ratio variation. Even though Xc decreased, conductivity was increased, with increasing PH3 doping concentration. Under the optimized condition, a n-µc-Si:H BSF layer has a dark conductivity of 2.59 S/cm, activation energy of 0.0519 eV, and X, of 52%. The conversion efficiency of 18.9% was achieved with a Voc of 706 mV, fill factor of 72%, and short circuit current density of 37.1 mW·cm(-2).

Electrical investigation of ITO films in Al-doped crystalline silicon solar cells

“…In HIT solar cells, the doping of a-Si thin films requires toxic gases such as phosphine (PH 3 ) and diborane (B 2 H 6 ) for n-and p-type doping respectively [16][17][18][19]. For long-term environmental sustainability it is important to have completely non-toxic processing approach.…”