Publication: Deposition of Intrinsic a-Si:H by ECR-CVD to Passivate the Crystalline Silicon Heterointerface in HIT Solar Cells
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2016
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Institute of Electrical and Electronics and Engineers (IEEE)
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Abstract
We have deposited intrinsic amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) using the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) chemical vapor deposition technique in order to analyze the a-Si:H/c-Si heterointerface and assess the possible application in heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cells. Physical characterization of the deposited films shows that the hydrogen content is in the 15-30% range, depending on deposition temperature. The optical bandgap value is always comprised within the range 1.9- 2.2 eV. Minority carrier lifetime measurements performed on the heterostructures reach high values up to 1.3 ms, indicating a well-passivated a-Si:H/c-Si heterointerface for deposition temperatures as low as 100°C. In addition, we prove that the metal-oxide- semiconductor conductance method to obtain interface trap distribution can be applied to the a-Si:H/c-Si heterointerface, since the intrinsic a-Si:H layer behaves as an insulator at low or negative bias. Values for the minimum of D_it as low as 8 × 10^10 cm^2 · eV^-1 were obtained for our samples, pointing to good surface passivation properties of ECR-deposited a-Si:H for HIT solar cell applications.
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© 2016 IEEE.
This work was supported in part by the Project MADRID-PV (under Grant 2013/MAE-2780) funded by the Comunidad de Madrid, by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) under Grant TEC 2013-41730-R and Grant TEC2016-75099-R, and by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Programa de Financiación de Grupos de Investigación UCM–Banco Santander) under Grant 910173-2014. The work of D. Montero was supported by the Spanish MINECO under Contract BES-2014-067585.
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