Role of Amorphous Carbon Thin Film Cells Developed by Microwave Surface Wave Plasma CVD for Photovoltaic Energy Application

Author

Ghimire, Dilip Chandra ; Adhikari, Sudip ; Uchida, Hideo ; Umeno, Masayoshi

Author_Institution

Fac. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Chubu Univ., Kasugai

Volume

2

fYear

2006

fDate

38838

Firstpage

1708

Lastpage

1711

Abstract

The a-C thin films were deposited by various techniques including a newly developed microwave (MW) surface-wave plasma (SWP) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique for solar cell application. The optical, structural, electrical and electronic properties of the films were studied by UV/VIS/NIR spectroscopy, AFM, Raman, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements. In this paper, we report experimental results of the optical, structural and photovoltaic properties of the a-C thin films; the results suggested that it is possible to control film growth rate and optical band gap with increasing gas composition pressure (GCP) inside the film deposition chamber consequently improve photoconductivity by proper selection of deposition parameters. Our research work is in progressing stage to realize cheap, high efficiency and environmentally friendly a-C based photovoltaic solar cell in near future

Keywords

Raman spectra; X-ray photoelectron spectra; amorphous semiconductors; atomic force microscopy; carbon; energy gap; infrared spectra; photoconductivity; plasma CVD; plasma materials processing; semiconductor thin films; solar cells; ultraviolet spectra; visible spectra; AFM; C; CVD technique; Raman spectroscopy; SWP; UV-VIS-NIR spectroscopy; X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; XPS; amorphous carbon thin film cells; atomic force microscopy; chemical vapor deposition technique; current-voltage measurements; electrical properties; electronic properties; microwave surface wave plasma; microwave surface-wave plasma; optical band gap; optical properties; photoconductivity; photovoltaic energy application; photovoltaic properties; photovoltaic solar cell; ultraviolet-visible-near infrared spectroscopy; Amorphous materials; Optical films; Optical surface waves; Photovoltaic systems; Plasma applications; Plasma waves; Solar power generation; Spectroscopy; Surface waves; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on

Conference_Location

Waikoloa, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0017-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279820

Filename

4059986