Development of novel Al doped zinc oxide film and its application to solar cells

Author

Kuramochi, H. ; Akiike, R. ; Iigusa, H. ; Utsumi, K. ; Shibutami, T. ; Sichanugrist, P. ; Konagai, M.

Author_Institution

TOSOH Corp., Ayase, Japan

fYear

2011

fDate

19-24 June 2011

Abstract

We have developed novel Al doped zinc oxide (AZO) films, AZO-X films, using d.c. magnetron sputtering process and have investigated their electro-optical properties and their surface morphology. AZO-X films showed a good balance between the transmittance in near-infrared area and the durability under 85°C-85%RH condition. And AZO-X film also had higher haze value after wet chemical etching than the value obtained in normal AZO film. Furthermore, AZO-X films have been applied to amorphous Si (a-Si) single-type solar cells as the front electrodes. The efficiency as high as 10.1% with high short-circuit current has been obtained, showing that this novel AZO-X is the new promising material for front electrode of a-Si solar cells.

Keywords

aluminium; electro-optical effects; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; sputtering; surface morphology; zinc compounds; AZO-X films; Al doped zinc oxide film; ZnO:Al; d.c. magnetron sputtering process; electro-optical properties; near-infrared area; solar cells; surface morphology; transmittance; Electrodes; Etching; Films; Photovoltaic cells; Silicon; Surface morphology;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2011 37th IEEE

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9966-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2011.6186580

Filename

6186580