11.0% Stable Efficiency on Large Area, Encapsulated a-Si:H and a-SiGe:H based Multijunction Solar Cells Using HF Technology

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe report on the investigation of large area a-Si:H/a-SiGe:H double-junction and a-Si:H/a-SiGe:H/a-SiGe:H triple-junction solar cells prepared by our proprietary High Frequency (HF) glow discharge technique. For investigative purposes, we initially used the simpler double-junction structure. We studied the effect of: (1) Ge content, (2) cell thickness, and (3) SiH4 and GeH4 gas flow on the light-induced degradation of the solar cells. Our results show that the double-junction cells with different Ge concentration have open-circuit voltage (Voc) in the range of 1.62-1.75 V. Voc exhibits a flat plateau in the range of 1.65-1.72 V for both initial and stabilized states. The light-induced degradation for cells in this range of Voc is insensitive to the Ge content. In terms of thickness dependence of the intrinsic layers, we found that the initial efficiency increases with cell thickness in the thickness range 2000-4000 Å. However, light-induced degradation increases with increasing thickness. Consequently, the stabilized efficiency is invariant with cell thickness in the thickness range studied. The results of SiH4 and GeH4 gas flow on cell characteristics demonstrate that the deposition rate decreases by only 20% when the active gas flow is reduced to 0.25 times standard flow. The initial and stabilized efficiencies are similar. The information gleaned from the study was used to fabricate high efficiency, large area (~464 cm2) double- and triple-junction solar cells. The highest stable efficiency, as measured by NREL, was 9.8% and 11.0% for the double- and triple-junction structures, respectively.