Diamond-like nanocomposite: a novel promising carbon based thin film as antireflection and passivation coating for silicon solar cell

Abstract

Presently, silicon nitride (SiNx) is widely used as antireflection coating (ARC) on p-type silicon solar cell. But, two highly toxic gasses ammonia and silane are used. In the present study, the ARC and passivation properties of diamond-like nanocomposite (DLN) thin film on silicon solar cell have been investigated. The DLN thin film has been deposited by rf-PACVD process using liquid precursor HMDSO in argon plasma. The film has been characterized by FESEM, HRTEM, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy. The optical properties have been estimated by UV–vis–NIR spectroscopy. The minimum reflection has been achieved to 0.75% at 630 nm. Both the short circuit current density and open circuit voltage has been increased significantly from 28.6 mA cm−2 to 35.5 mA cm−2 and 0.551 V to 0.613 V respectively. The field effect passivation has been confirmed by dark IV characterization of c-Si /DLN heterojunction structure. All these lead to enhancement of efficiency by almost 4% absolute, which is comparable to SiNx. The ammonia and silane free deposited DLN thin film has a great potential to use as ARC for silicon based solar cell.