CHARACTERIZATION OF HWCVD INTRINSIC AND DOPED SILICON FILMS APPLICATION FOR SOLAR CELLS

Shui-Yang Lien (Taiwan)

Received June 23, 2009

Abstract

The formation of device-quality silicon films on low cost substrates has important applications in the development of electrical devices. Several features are required to intrinsic amorphous or polycrystalline silicon for its incorporation as the active layer in photovoltaic devices. Although structural, electrical and optical properties can be individually analyzed by means of different characterization techniques, a clear correlation between them is observed. In this paper, all silicon films were grown by using Hot-Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition (HWCVD). By varying the deposition condition such as pressure, filament temperature, substrate temperature and hydrogen dilution, the silicon films were optimized with respect to its characteristics. Overviews of the material properties of hot-wire deposited amorphous silicon and polycrystalline silicon layers are given in this paper. The device-quality properties required, our best results and solar cell application have been investigated. The double-sided heterojunction silicon solar cell with efficiency of 16.4% and thin film silicon solar cell with efficiency of 7.6% have been fabricated by HWCVD.

Keywords and phrases: hot-wire chemical vapor deposition, amorphous silicon, polycrystalline silicon, solar cells.