Grown Low-Temperature Microcrystalline Silicon Thin Film by VHF PECVD for Thin Films Solar Cell

Abstract EN

Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon thin films can be used to fabricate stable thinfilm solar cell, which were deposited by very high frequency plasma-enhancedchemical vapor deposition at low temperatures (~200°C).

It has been found that theobtained film presented excellent structural and electrical properties, such as highgrowth rate and good crystallinity.

With the decreasing of silane concentration, theoptical gap and the dark conductivity increased, whereas the activation energydecreased.

A reasonable explanation was presented to elucidate these phenomena.

Inaddition, we fabricated p-i-n structure solar cells using the optimum microcrystallinesilicon thin films, and preliminary efficiency of 4.6% was obtained for 1 μm thickmicrocrystalline silicon thin film solar cells with open-circuits voltage of 0.773 V andshort-circuits current density of 12.28 mA/cm2.

Future scope for performanceimprovement lies mainly in further increasing the short-circuit current.