Design considerations for stable amorphous silicon and silicon-germanium solar cells

Author

Dalal, Vikram L. ; Baldwin, Greg

Author_Institution

Dept. of EE & CpE, Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA, USA

fYear

1991

fDate

7-11 Oct 1991

Firstpage

1363

Abstract

The effects of degradation of the electronic properties of a-Si:H and a-(Si,Ge):H alloys on light soaking on the device physics of the a-Si and a-(Si,Ge) cells are examined. It is shown that both the decrease in mobility-lifetime products and the decrease in electric field in the middle of the device contribute to the rapid decrease in fill factor. To the authors propose using a novel graded bandgap scheme, where the grading in the bandgap is in the middle of the device. The feasibility of fabricating such devices is examined

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; amorphous semiconductors; carrier lifetime; carrier mobility; electric fields; electrical conductivity of amorphous semiconductors and insulators; elemental semiconductors; energy gap; hydrogen; semiconductor doping; silicon; stability; Si:H; SiGe:H; amorphous semiconductors; bandgap; degradation; design; electric field; electronic properties; fill factor; light soaking; mobility-lifetime products; solar cells; stability; Amorphous silicon; Charge carrier processes; Degradation; Germanium silicon alloys; Neodymium; Photonic band gap; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Silicon germanium; Stability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1991., Conference Record of the Twenty Second IEEE

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV

Print_ISBN

0-87942-636-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1991.169430

Filename

169430