Fluorine-doped ZnO (FZO) films produced by corona-discharge-assisted ultrasonic spray pyrolysis and hydrogenation as electron-selective contacts in FZO/SiOx/p-Si heterojunction crystalline silicon solar cells with 11.7% efficiency

Abstract

In this paper, we report the fabrication of an F-doped ZnO (FZO)/SiOx/(pp+)Cz-Si heterostructure by growing thin FZO films on (pp+)Cz-Si substrates by a novel, corona-discharge-assisted ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (CDA-USP) technique in combination with post-deposition annealing in hydrogen. We examine the effect of the F/Zn ratio and acetic acid concentration in film-forming solution on the structure, morphology, growth rate, and electrical properties of the FZO films and on the photovoltaic properties of FZO/SiOx/(pp+)Cz-Si structures. Under 1-sun illumination, a solar cell produced using the FZO/SiOx/(pp+)Cz-Si structure has an open-circuit voltage of 542 mV, a short-circuit current of 35.3 mA/cm2, and a solar cell efficiency (referred to the total area) of 11.7%, the highest value reported to date for TCO/Si heterojunction solar cells with ZnO-based TCOs.