• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
• /
• v.34 no.4
• /
• pp.251-255
• /
• 2021

a-Si is commonly considered as a primary candidate for the formation of passivation layer in heterojunction (HIT) solar cells. However, there are some problems when using this material such as significant losses due to recombination and parasitic absorption. To reduce these problems, a wide bandgap material is needed. A wide bandgap has a positive influence on effective transmittance, reduction of the parasitic absorption, and prevention of unnecessary epitaxial growth. In this paper, the adoption of a-SiO_x:H as the intrinsic layer was discussed. To increase lifetime and conductivity, oxygen concentration control is crucial because it is correlated with the thickness, bonding defect, interface density (D_it), and band offset. A thick oxygen-rich layer causes the lifetime and the implied open-circuit voltage to drop. Furthermore the thicker the layer gets, the more free hydrogen atoms are etched in thin films, which worsens the passivation quality and the efficiency of solar cells. Previous studies revealed that the lifetime and the implied voltage decreased when the a-SiOx thickness went beyond around 9 nm. In addition to this, oxygen acted as a defect in the intrinsic layer. The D_it increased up to an oxygen rate on the order of 8%. Beyond 8%, the D_it was constant. By controlling the oxygen concentration properly and achieving a thin layer, high-efficiency HIT solar cells can be fabricated.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.6-11
• /
• 2020

The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of a two-terminal tandem solar cell depends upon the tunnel-recombination junction (TRJ) between the top and bottom sub-cells. An optimized TRJ in a tandem cell helps improve its open-circuit voltage (V_oc), short-circuit current density (J_sc), fill factor (FF), and efficiency (PCE). One of the parameters that affect the TRJ is the buffer layer thickness. Therefore, we investigated various TRJs by varying the thickness of the buffer or intermediate layer (TRJ-buffer) in between the highly doped p-type and n-type layers of the TRJ. The TRJ-buffer layer was p-type nc-Si:H, with a doping of 0.06%, an activation energy (E_a) of 43 meV, an optical gap (E_g) of 2.04 eV, and its thickness was varied from 0 nm to 125 nm. The tandem solar cells we investigated were a combination of a heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) bottom sub-cell and an a-Si:H (amorphous silicon) top sub-cell. The initial cell efficiency without the TRJ buffer was 7.65% while with an optimized buffer layer, its efficiency improved to 11.74%, i.e., an improvement in efficiency by a factor of 1.53.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
• /
• 2014.02a
• /
• pp.351.2-351.2
• /
• 2014

Indium tin oxide (ITO) has a lot of variations of its properties because it is basically in an amorphous state. Therefore, the differences in composition ratio of ITO can result in alteration of electrical properties. Normally, ITO is considered as transparent conductive oxide (TCO), possessing excellent properties for the optical and electrical devices. Quantitatively, TCO has transparency over 80 percent within the range of 380nm to 780nm, which is visible light although its specific resistance is less than $10-3{\Omega}/cm$. Thus, the solar cell is the best example for which ITO has perfectly matching profile. In addition, when ITO is used as transparent conductive electrode, this material essentially has to have a proper work function with contact materials. For instance, heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT) solar cell could have both front ITO and backside ITO. Because each side of ITO films has different type of contact materials, p-type amorphous silicon and n-type amorphous silicon, work function of ITO has to be modified to transport carrier with low built-in potential and Schottky barrier, and approximately requires variation from 3 eV to 5 eV. In this study, we examine the change of work function for different sputtering conditions using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). Structure of ITO films was investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optical transmittance of the films was evaluated by using an ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometer