Comparison of thin epitaxial film silicon photovoltaics fabricated on monocrystalline and polycrystalline seed layers on glass

Published

May 5, 2014

Author(s)

C W. Teplin, Sachit Grover, Adrian Chitu, Alexander Limanov, Monical Chalal, James Im, Daniel Amkreutz, Stefan Gall, Heayoung Yoon, Vincenzo Lasalvia, H M. Branz, Paul Stradins, Kim M. Jones, Andrew G. Norman, David L. Young, Benjamin Lee

Abstract

We fabricate thin epitaxial c-Si solar cells on display glass and fused silica substrates overcoated with a Si seed layer. We achieve an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 586 mV and 6.5% efficiency using a 2 µm thick absorber on a (100) monocrystalline layer transfer seed on display glass. This device establishes the quality of hot-wire chemical vapor deposition epitaxy at glass-compatible temperatures and enables the evaluation of seed layers. Using lower cost polycrystalline seeds formed from amorphous silicon by laser-induced mixed phase solidification (MPS) and electron beam crystallization (EB), we demonstrate solar cells with VOC of 476 mV (MPS) and 551 mV (EB), respectively. Grain boundaries likely limit the solar cell grown on the MPS seed layer and we establish an upper bound for the grain boundary recombination velocity (SGB) of 1.6x104 cm/s.

Citation

Progress in Photovoltaics

Volume

23

Issue

7

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.2505

Local Download

Keywords

epitaxial Si solar cell, mixed phase solidification, electron beam crystallization, EBIC, XRD, TEM

Citation

Teplin, C. , Grover, S. , Chitu, A. , Limanov, A. , Chalal, M. , Im, J. , Amkreutz, D. , Gall, S. , Yoon, H. , Lasalvia, V. , Branz, H. , Stradins, P. , Jones, K. , Norman, A. , Young, D. and Lee, B. (2014), Comparison of thin epitaxial film silicon photovoltaics fabricated on monocrystalline and polycrystalline seed layers on glass, Progress in Photovoltaics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1002/pip.2505, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=914899 (Accessed April 26, 2024)