Open circuit voltage improvement of high-deposition-rate microcrystalline silicon solar cells by hot wire interface layers

Significant improvement in open circuit voltage and fill factor was achieved for microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) solar cells deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) by the incorporation of an intrinsic μc-Si:Hp∕i buffer layer fabricated by hot-wire (HW) CVD. The improved p∕i interface quality, likely due to the ion-free deposition on the p layers in the HWCVD process, was concluded from a considerably enhanced blue light response in such solar cells. Using this buffer layer concept allows the authors to apply high deposition rate PECVD processes for the μc-Si:Hi layer material, yielding a high efficiency of 10.3% for a single junction μc-Si:H solar cell.