High pressure processing of hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells: Relation between nanostructure and high open-circuit voltage.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Fischer, Marinus; Tan, Hairen; Melskens, Jimmy; Vasudevan, Ravi; Zeman, Miro; Smets, Arno H. M.
- Source
- Applied Physics Letters. 1/26/2015, Vol. 106 Issue 4, p1-5. 5p. 1 Diagram, 4 Graphs.
- Subject
- *HIGH pressure (Technology)
*HYDROGENATED amorphous silicon
*SILICON solar cells
*NANOSTRUCTURES
*OPEN-circuit voltage
*AMORPHOUS silicon
- Language
- ISSN
- 0003-6951
This study gives a guideline on developing high bandgap, high quality hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) through a carefully engineered nanostructure. Single-junction a-Si:H solar cells with open-circuit voltages (Voc) above 950 mV and conversion efficiencies above 9% are realized by processing the absorber layers at high pressures of 7-10 mbar. The high Voc is a result of an increased bandgap, which is attributed to an increase in the average size of the open volume deficiencies in the absorber layer without a significant increase in the nanosized void density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]