Highly improved passivation of c-Si surfaces using a gradient i a-Si:H layer
Abstract
Surface passivation using intrinsic a-Si:H (i a-Si:H) films plays a key role in high efficiency c-Si heterojunction solar cells. In this study, we demonstrate improved passivation quality using i a-Si:H films with a gradient-layered structure consisting of interfacial, transition, and capping layers deposited on c-Si surfaces. The H2 dilution ratio (R) during deposition was optimized individually for the interfacial and capping layers, which were separated by a transition layer for which R changed gradually between its values for the interfacial and capping layers. This approach yielded a significant reduction in surface carrier recombination, resulting in improvement of the minority carrier lifetime from 1480 μs for mono-layered i a-Si:H passivation to 2550 μs for the gradient-layered passivation approach.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 26, 2018
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.5023000
Entities
People
- Edward T. Yu
- Jae Hyun Kim
- Jaehyun Ahn
- Leo Mathew
- Rajesh Rao
- Sanjay K. Banerjee
- Soonil Lee
- Zhongjian Zhang
Organizations
- United States Army Research Laboratory
- University of Texas at Austin