Inductively coupled plasma grown semiconductor films for low cost solar cells with improved light-soaking stability

Abstract

We investigate the performance of a single-junction amorphous Si (a-Si) solar cell fabricated with inductively coupled plasma (ICP) deposition technique. The high-density plasma resulting from high dissociation capacity of ICP enables good-quality hydrogenated Si films to be synthesized at low temperatures. High-density ICP also promotes the diffusion of reactive radicals on substrates and forms a-Si:H films with low defect density (∼3 × 1015 cm−3). We demonstrate single-junction a-Si solar cells with a conversion efficiency of 9.6% and improved light-soaking stability. This low thermal-budget thin-film technique could open up the feasibility of efficient thin film solar cells on flexible substrates.