Characteristics of a-SiGe:H Solar Cell with various Thickness Ratio of a-Si:H/a-SiGe:H Layer in the Intrinsic Layer

Abstract

In the present work, we have investigated the characteristics of a-SiGe:H solar cell with an optical absorption layer (a-Si:H, a-SiGe:H) between p-layer and n-layer. The characteristics of the fabricated a-SiGe:H solar cells were carried out with a-Si:H and a-SiGe:H according to various thickness in the intrinsic layer. The entire thickness of a-Si:H and a-SiGe:H layers were 2000 Å whereas thickness of a-Si:H layer was varied from 50 Å to 800 Å. Modulating thickness of a-Si:H layer, we verified parameter characteristics of fabricated solar cell such as open-circuit voltage (V_OC), short-circuit density current (J_SC), fill factor (FF), and conversion efficiency (η) comparing with a-SiGe:H solar cell by using an XEC-301S solar simulator that was composed of a Xenon lamp and AM filter under standard AM 1.5G conditions. Further analysis the UV-VIS Spectrometer and Quantum efficiency (QE) are used to verify the transmittance and absorptance, respectively. It was observed that the higher performances (V_oc: 0.54 V, J_sc: 20.64 mA/cm², FF: 0.41 and η: 4.59%) of a-SiGe:H solar cell with thickness of a-Si:H layer in the intrinsic layer. This ascribed to fact that the insertion of a-Si:H layer increased the performance by influencing the intrinsic layer of a-Si:H solar cell.

Keywords:

• a-Si:H
• a-SiGe:H
• solar cells
• conversion efficiency
• PECVD

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology(2012R1A1A2007685).