High-rate growth of hydrogenated amorphous and microcrystalline silicon for thin-film silicon solar cells using dynamic very-high frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition
Thin-film silicon tandem solar cells based on a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) top-cell and a hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) bottom-cell are a promising photovoltaic technology as they use a combination of absorber materials that is ideally suited for the solar spectrum. Ad...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden
2014
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-131765 http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-131765 http://www.qucosa.de/fileadmin/data/qucosa/documents/13176/E_U_183_elektronische%20Version.pdf |
| Summary: | Thin-film silicon tandem solar cells based on a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) top-cell and a hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) bottom-cell are a promising photovoltaic technology as they use a combination of absorber materials that is ideally suited for the solar spectrum. Additionally, the involved materials are abundant and non-toxic which is important for the manufacturing and application on a large scale.
One of the most important factors for the application of photovoltaic technologies is the cost per watt. There are several ways to reduce this figure: increasing the efficiency of the solar cells, reducing the material consumption and increasing the throughput of the manufacturing equipment.
The use of very-high frequencies has been proven to be beneficial for the material quality at high deposition rates thus enabling a high throughput and high solar cell efficiencies. In the present work a scalable very-high frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (VHF-PECVD) technique for state-of-the-art solar cells is developed. Linear plasma sources are applied which facilitate the use of very-high frequencies on large areas without compromising on the homogeneity of the deposition process.
The linear plasma sources require a dynamic deposition process with the substrate passing by the electrodes in order to achieve a homogeneous deposition on large areas. State-of-the-art static radio-frequency (RF) PECVD processes are used as a reference in order to assess the potential of a dynamic VHF-PECVD technique for the growth of high-quality a-Si:H and μc-Si:H absorber layers at high rates.
In chapter 4 the influence of the deposition process of the μc-Si:H i-layer on the solar cell performance is studied for static deposition processes. It is shown that the correlation between the i-layer growth rate, its crystallinity and the solar cell performance is similar for VHF- and RF-PECVD processes despite the different electrode configurations, excitation frequencies and process regimes. It is found that solar cells incorporating i-layers grown statically using VHF-PECVD processes obtain a state-of-the-art efficiency close to 8 % for growth rates up to 1.4 nm/s compared to 0.53 nm/s for RF-PECVD processes.
The influence of dynamic deposition processes on the performance of μc-Si:H solar cells is studied. It is found that μc-Si:H solar cells incorporating dynamically grown i-layers obtain an efficiency of 7.3 % at a deposition rate of 0.95 nm/s. There is a small negative influence of the dynamic deposition process on the solar cell efficiency compared to static deposition processes which is related to the changing growth conditions the substrate encounters during a dynamic i-layer deposition process.
The changes in gas composition during a dynamic i-layer deposition process using the linear plasma sources are studied systematically using a static RF-PECVD regime and applying a time-dependent gas composition. The results show that the changes in the gas composition affect the solar cell performance if they exceed a critical level.
In chapter 5 dynamic VHF-PECVD processes for a-Si:H are developed in order to investigate the influence of the i-layer growth rate, process parameters and deposition technique on the solar performance and light-induced degradation. The results in this work indicate that a-Si:H solar cells incorporating i-layers grown dynamically by VHF-PECVD using linear plasma sources perform as good and better as solar cells with i-layers grown statically by RF-PECVD at the same deposition rate. State-of-the-art stabilized a-Si:H solar cell efficiencies of 7.6 % are obtained at a growth rate of 0.35 nm/s using dynamic VHF-PECVD processes.
It is found that the stabilized efficiency of the a-Si:H solar cells strongly decreases with the i-layer deposition rate. A simplified model is presented that is used to obtain an estimate for the deposition rate dependent efficiency of an a-Si:H/μc-Si:H tandem solar cell based on the photovoltaic parameters of the single-junction solar cells. The aim is to investigate the individual influences of the a-Si:H and μc-Si:H absorber layer deposition rates on the performance of the tandem solar cell.
The results show that a high deposition rate of the μc-Si:H absorber layer has a much higher potential for reducing the total deposition time of the absorber layers compared to high deposition rates for the a-Si:H absorber layer. Additionally, it is found that high deposition rates for a-Si:H have a strong negative impact on the tandem solar cell performance while the tandem solar cell efficiency remains almost constant for higher μc-Si:H deposition rates.
It is concluded that the deposition rate of the μc-Si:H absorber layer is key to reduce the total deposition time without compromising on the tandem solar cell performance. The developed VHF-PECVD technique using linear plasma sources is capable of meeting this criterion while promoting a path to scale the processes to large substrate areas. |
|---|