Enhanced light-trapping for micromorph tandem solar cells by LP-CVD ZnO

Author

Meier, J. ; Spitznagel, J. ; Fay, S. ; Bucher, C. ; Graf, U. ; Kroll, U. ; Dubail, S. ; Shah, A.

Author_Institution

Inst. de Microtechnique, Neuchatel, Switzerland

fYear

2002

fDate

19-24 May 2002

Firstpage

1118

Lastpage

1121

Abstract

Amorphous silicon p-i-n single-junction and "micromorph" (amorphous/microcrystalline) tandem solar cells have been deposited on "inhouse" LP-CVD zinc oxide front-TCO. ZnO shows superior light-trapping behavior compared to SnO₂ (Asahi type U). Up-scaling to modules by laser scribing has been developed, both for amorphous single-junction and for micromorph tandem cells on LP-CVD ZnO. Within our laboratory-size reactor an amorphous mini-module (22 cm²) with an aperture efficiency of 8.4% after 200 h of light-soaking could be fabricated. In case of micromorph tandem modules (24 cm²) a stabilized aperture area efficiency of 9.8% (initial 11%) has been achieved. Modified micromorph tandem cells with an intermediate reflector between the a-Si:H top and the pc-Si:H bottom cell show almost stable behavior with respect to light-soaking.

Keywords

CVD coatings; II-VI semiconductors; amorphous semiconductors; elemental semiconductors; hydrogen; semiconductor device measurement; silicon; solar cells; zinc compounds; 200 h; 8.4 percent; 9.8 percent; LP-CVD ZnO; Si:H; ZnO; amorphous silicon p-i-n single-junction; efficiency; enhanced light-trapping; laser scribing; micromorph tandem solar cells; Amorphous materials; Amorphous silicon; Apertures; Conducting materials; Conductivity; Inductors; Laboratories; PIN photodiodes; Photovoltaic cells; Zinc oxide;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2002. Conference Record of the Twenty-Ninth IEEE

ISSN

1060-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7471-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2002.1190802

Filename

1190802