Fabrication of Microcrystalline Cubic Silicon Carbide/Crystalline Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cell by Hot Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition

Abstract

The n-type microcrystalline cubic silicon carbide (mc-3C-SiC:H) films were deposited by hot wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) at a low substrate temperature ($300 C). Heterojunction silicon based photovoltaic devices were fabricated by depositing wide band gap n-type mc-3C-SiC thin films on p-type Si wafers, whose thickness and resistivity were 200 mm and 1-10 cm, respectively. The silicon wafers were textured using alkaline etchant prior to the device fabrication. The photovoltaic parameters of a typical device were found to be V oc ¼ 560 mV, J sc ¼ 35:0 mA/cm 2 , fill factor (F.F.) = 0.724, and ¼ 14:20%. Numerical analysis was performed using automat for simulation of hetero structures (AFORS-HET), a onedimensional device simulators to determine the probable cause of the changes in device parameters before and after the ageing of the filament.

Transparent silicon carbide/tunnel SiO2 passivation for c‐Si solar cell front side: Enabling Jsc > 42 mA/cm2 and iVoc of 742 mV

“… However, the deposition conditions for growing highly transparent μc‐SiC:H(n) on top of a‐Si:H(i) lead to strong deterioration of the underlying amorphous silicon layers, because of etch‐off of the films, , . This trade‐off between high‐quality passivation and attractive transparency has limited the beneficial implementation of μc‐SiC:H(n) in silicon solar cells for a long time. In the past, we showed that it is possible to fabricate symmetric test structures, where the layer stack of HWCVD‐grown μc‐SiC:H(n) on tunnel SiO 2 passivated the c‐Si surfaces.…”

Effects of Hydrogen Dilution Ratio on Properties of Hydrogenated Nanocrystalline Cubic Silicon Carbide Films Deposited by Very High-Frequency Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

“…5,6) We also reported n-and p-type doping into nc-3C-SiC:H 1,7,8) and the fabrication of heterojunction crystalline silicon solar cells with an n-type nc-3C-SiC:H window layer deposited by HWCVD. The solar cells showed a high quantum efficiency of about 0.8 at a wavelength of 400 nm, reflecting the low optical absorption of nc-3C-SiC:H. 8,9) Although the short circuit current density and fill factor of the solar cells were sufficient, the open circuit voltage is very low to achieve a high conversion efficiency. We also found that the low open circuit voltage was caused by a poor interface between the silicon wafer and the nc-3C-SiC:H window layer.…”

Dual hot-wire arrangement for the deposition of silicon and silicon carbide thin films

“…Besides silicon, HWCVD technique also shows its superiority in depositing stoichiometric microcrystalline silicon carbide (μc-SiC:H) material with mainly cubic SiC polytype at low substrate temperatures [7][8][9][10][11]. Such wide band-gap μc-SiC:H material is an outstanding window layer for solar cells, such as silicon thin film solar cells [12,13] and silicon heterojunction solar cells [14][15][16][17]. In terms of the deposition process, it is of great technical interest and importance to deposit varieties of materials in one processing chamber.…”