Intermediate band materials obtained by rapid thermal process of Co-implanted silicon

Abstract

The intermediate band solar cell (IBSC) is a kind of novel photovoltaic device with very high efficiency limit. The intermediate band (IB) material is a key factor for fabricating high-performance IBSC. We explore to prepare IB material by Co implantation in silicon followed by a rapid thermal process (RTP). The results show that an IB is successfully formed in Si layer. The IB is located at about 0.3eV above the valence band edge. Moreover, no impurity phase is formed in the samples. Our results indicated that it is effective to form IB materials with the combination of ion implantation and RTP method. This approach is attractive since the RTP technique is beneficial to fabricate IB materials with thick impurity layers and convenient to use for mass production.