Fabrication and Investigation of Photovoltaic Converters Based on Polycrystalline Silicon Grown on Borosilicate Glass

Abstract

The microcrystalline Si layers with grain sizes of up to several tens of micrometers were grown. The physical vapor deposition (PVD), amorphous–liquid–crystalline (ALC) transition technique and a steady-state liquid phase epitaxy (SSLPE) are used for the fabrication of three different samples. The first sample under consideration was prepared first by deposition of a-Si onto glass substrates by PVD at room temperature, followed by heating from the front side to ~300°C and deposition of an indium metallic solvent. At the preparation of the second sample, an additional silicon layer with the thickness of 400 nm was deposited. A sample, when after that a c-Si was grown on the seed layer by SSLPE from indium solution is referred as a third sample. The resulting samples have a strong absorption edge in the mid-infrared region around 1960 cm−1. Six well-resolved oscillations with an average period of δB = 0.1214 T are revealed on the third sample’s magnetoresistance curve at gradually increasing of the magnetic field from zero up to 1.6 T. It is assumed that either Aharonov–Bohm effect or kinetic phenomena taking place in the grains boundaries at lateral current flow are responsible for those oscillations. Quantitative evaluations show that due to the strong absorption in mid-infrared region, enlargement of the photoresponse spectrum will occur and the efficiency of solar and other thermal energy conversion should be around ~10–15% higher than that of traditional PV cells based on silicon on glass structures.