Electrical Characterization of Amorphous Silicon MIS-Based Structures for HIT Solar Cell Applications

Héctor García; Helena Castán; Salvador Dueñas; Luis Bailón; Rodrigo García-Hernansanz; Javier Olea; Álvaro Del Prado; Ignacio Mártil

doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1545-z

Electrical Characterization of Amorphous Silicon MIS-Based Structures for HIT Solar Cell Applications

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2016 Dec;11(1):335. doi: 10.1186/s11671-016-1545-z. Epub 2016 Jul 16.

Authors

Héctor García¹, Helena Castán², Salvador Dueñas¹, Luis Bailón¹, Rodrigo García-Hernansanz³, Javier Olea³, Álvaro Del Prado³, Ignacio Mártil³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electronics, University of Valladolid, Paseo Belén, 15, 47011, Valladolid, Spain.
² Department of Electronics, University of Valladolid, Paseo Belén, 15, 47011, Valladolid, Spain. helena@ele.uva.es.
³ Dpto. Física Aplicada III, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, CEI Campus Moncloa, UCM-UPM, Madrid, Spain.

Abstract

A complete electrical characterization of hydrogenated amorphous silicon layers (a-Si:H) deposited on crystalline silicon (c-Si) substrates by electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition (ECR-CVD) was carried out. These structures are of interest for photovoltaic applications. Different growth temperatures between 30 and 200 °C were used. A rapid thermal annealing in forming gas atmosphere at 200 °C during 10 min was applied after the metallization process. The evolution of interfacial state density with the deposition temperature indicates a better interface passivation at higher growth temperatures. However, in these cases, an important contribution of slow states is detected as well. Thus, using intermediate growth temperatures (100-150 °C) might be the best choice.

Keywords: Deposition temperature dependencies; Electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition; Hydrogenated amorphous silicon; Interfacial state density; Photovoltaics.