Finely tuning crystallinity and doping of hydrogenated microcristalline silicon thin films is a keypoint into obtaining high quality devices for above integrated circuit (above-IC) image sensors. This study focuses on the structural and electrical properties of RF-PECVD deposited microcrystalline silicon (µc-Si:H) contact layers. In this work, phos...
In this study, we developed a microcrystalline silicon tunnel junction to be used as a tunnel recombination junction between a large-gap top-cell and a silicon heterojunction bottomcell, in a monolithic tandem integration. This junction is composed of a p-type layer on the top of an n-type layer, deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor depositi...
Published in Applied Physics A
Thick silicon films were deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at different plasma power densities. Annealing treatment was performed on these deposited films. As-deposited and annealed films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman scattering spectroscopy and reflectance spectroscopy. Before annealing, only the film deposite...
Aluminium induced texturing (AIT) method has been used to texture glass substrates to enhance photon absorption in microcrystalline thin film Si solar cells. In this process, a thin Al film is deposited on a glass substrate and a non-uniform redox reaction between the glass and the Al film occurs when they are annealed at high temperature. After et...
Published in Semiconductors
By means of the small-angle X-ray-scattering technique, a set of two types of microcrystalline silicon samples produced for use in solar-cell panels is investigated. It is shown that, in the two individual samples belonging to different types, the heights of silicon grains amount to about 230 and 23 nm instead of the technologically planned 200 and...
Aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) has been used to achieve device quality nc-Si thin films, at annealing temperatures ranging from 300 to 450 degrees C, exhibiting electronic properties favourable for piezoresistive microelectromechanical systems sensor application. The nc-Si films obtained by AIC at an annealing temperature of 400 degrees C s...
Published in Applied Magnetic Resonance
Electrically detected hyperfine sublevel correlation (ED-HYSCORE) measurements are presented and employed to study spin-dependent transport in thin-film microcrystalline silicon solar cells. We explore the hyperfine coupling between paramagnetic conduction band tail states involved in hopping transport and neighboring 29Si nuclei at low temperature...
Published in Applied Physics A
We introduced a metallic nanograting at the bottom of thin-film tandem solar cells, and carried out an investigation into the light absorption in the top and bottom cells via the electromagnetic simulation. It indicates that broadband and polarization-insensitive light absorption enhancement can be obtained in the bottom cell, while the light absor...
Published in Semiconductors
An experimental installation and the procedure for its use in accelerated tests of thin-film α-Si:H/μc-Si:H photovoltaic converters with dimensions of up to 100 × 100 mm on light-induced degradation under an increased illumination level (up to 10 kW/m2) are described. Estimates of the levels of photoinduced degradation of photovoltaic converters, o...
Published in Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics
The boron(B)- and phosphorous(P)-doped microcrystalline silicon (Si) thin films were prepared by magnetron sputtering of heavily B- and P-doped Si targets followed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA), their electrical properties were characterized by temperature-dependent Hall and resistivity measurements. It was observed that the dark conductivity an...
