Deposition pressure effects on material structure and performance of micromorph tandem solar cells

Veneri, P. Delli; Mercaldo, Lucia V.; Privato, C.

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2007.03.009

Cited by 21 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The intrinsic layer thicknesses were fixed at 250 nm for the a‐Si:H and 2 µm for the µc‐Si:H cell. The deposition conditions used for the p‐layer and i‐layer are reported elsewhere . For each design, eight cells with an area of 1 cm 2 were defined by evaporating the Ag back contact.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved micromorph solar cells by means of mixed‐phase n‐doped silicon oxide layers

Veneri

Mercaldo

Usatii

2011

Progress in Photovoltaics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A good light trapping scheme is necessary to improve the performance of amorphous/microcrystalline silicon tandem cells. This is generally achieved by using a highly reflective transparent conducting oxide/metal back contact plus an intermediate reflector between the component cells. In this work, the use of doped silicon oxide as alternative n‐layer in micromorph solar cells is proposed as a means to obtain high current values using a simple Ag back contact and no extra reflector between the component cells n‐doped silicon oxide layers with a wide range of optical and electrical properties have been prepared. The influence of different deposition regimes on the material properties has been studied. The main findings are the following: (i) when carbon dioxide is added to the gas mixture, sufficiently high hydrogen dilution is necessary to widen the transition region from highly conductive microcrystalline‐like films to amorphous material characterized by low electrical conductivity; (ii) lower refractive index values are found with lower deposition pressure. Optimal n‐doped silicon oxide layers have been used in both component cells of micromorph devices, adopting a simple Ag back contact. Higher current values for both cells are obtained in comparison with the values obtained using standard n‐doped microcrystalline silicon, whereas similar values of fill factor and open circuit voltage are measured. The current enhancement is particularly evident for the bottom cell, as revealed by the increased spectral response in the red/infrared region. The results prove the high potential of n‐doped silicon oxide as ideal reflector for thin‐film silicon solar cells. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved micromorph solar cells by means of mixed‐phase n‐doped silicon oxide layers

Veneri

Mercaldo

Usatii

2011

Progress in Photovoltaics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The deposition conditions used for p and i-layer are reported elsewhere. 8 For each design eight cells with area of 1 cm 2 are defined by evaporating the Ag back contact. For comparison cells with standard c-Si: H n-layer have been also fabricated adopting a ZnO/Ag back contact.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Silicon oxide based n-doped layer for improved performance of thin film silicon solar cells

Veneri

Mercaldo

Usatii

2010

Applied Physics Letters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We propose the use of n-doped silicon oxide as alternative n-layer in thin film Si p-i-n solar cells. By varying input gas ratios, films with a wide range of optical and electrical properties are obtained. Applying these layers in solar cells, good electrical and optical properties are demonstrated. A relative efficiency increase up to 13.6% has been observed on the cells adopting a simple Ag back contact. A similar spectral response as with the cell with standard n-layer plus ZnO/Ag back contact is obtained. The deposition of a buffer layer at the back contact can therefore be avoided.

show abstract

“…The transmission spectra of the TCO films were recorded with a double-beam spectrophotometer (Shimadzu UV/VIS 3100 PC) from which the optical gap ( E g ) was determined through the Tauc's plot [25]. …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the thin film silicon solar cells studied in this work, TCO S were used at three different positions: as a front contact, at the bottom (between the n-doped layer and the metal contact) [1, 2, 25] of the single junction [26] and as an intermediate reflector of the tandem solar cells [27]. These TCOs should be highly transparent in the range of the solar spectrum, highly conductive, non-toxic, have high carrier mobility and high stability against atomic hydrogen and an appropriate refractive index for coupling of light into the silicon absorber material and high scattering ability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of a disperse carbon interlayer on the performances of tandem a-Si solar cells

Araújo

Barros

Mateus

et al. 2013

Science and Technology of Advanced Materials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We report the effect of a disperse carbon interlayer between the n-a-Si:H layer and an aluminium zinc oxide (AZO) back contact on the performance of amorphous silicon solar cells. Carbon was incorporated to the AZO film as revealed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and energy-dispersive x-ray analysis. Solar cells fabricated on glass substrates using AZO in the back contact performed better when a disperse carbon interlayer was present in their structure. They exhibited an initial efficiency of 11%, open-circuit voltage Voc = 1.6 V, short-circuit current JSC = 11 mA cm−2 and a filling factor of 63%, that is, a 10% increase in the JSC and 20% increase in the efficiency compared to a standard solar cell.

show abstract

Deposition pressure effects on material structure and performance of micromorph tandem solar cells

Cited by 21 publications

References 13 publications

Improved micromorph solar cells by means of mixed‐phase n‐doped silicon oxide layers

Improved micromorph solar cells by means of mixed‐phase n‐doped silicon oxide layers

Silicon oxide based n-doped layer for improved performance of thin film silicon solar cells

Role of a disperse carbon interlayer on the performances of tandem a-Si solar cells

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About