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Multi-junction solar cell efficiency gains due to GeSn and SiGeSn have already shown that a need exists for significant advancement in growing this material in a commercially available CVD chamber. Ge1−xSnx films have been grown via an Epsilon RPCVD single wafer CVD deposition tool on Si using a relaxed Ge buffer layer. The material and optical properties of these films have been characterized for...
This paper introduces the modeling developed to assess the potential of a III–V/SiGe tandem device. Demonstration of value will be executed via materials and solar cell device models. III–V top cell candidates are evaluated and a high-value composition is identified. Initial windowless GaAsP solar cells demonstrate a bandgap-voltage offset of 0.58.
The aim of this study is to optimize a low cost phosphorus diffusion process suitable for pn junction formation on extremely thin (<;100um) c-Si solar cells. The deposition of the doping layer has been carried out by spray coating of commercial and non-commercial precursors. There have been monitored sheet resistance, effective lifetime and oxygen content in the prepared emitters.
The work presented here aims to reduce the cost of multijunction solar cell technology by developing ways to manufacture them on cheap substrates such as silicon. In particular, our main objective is the growth of III-V semiconductors on silicon substrates for photovoltaic applications. The goal is to create a GaAsP/Si virtual substrates onto which other III-V cells could be integrated with an interesting...
p-microcrystalline-silicon/n-crystalline-silicon hetero-junction solar cell has been prepared by means of hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HW-CVD) technique. The solar cell structure was illuminated on the opposite side of the normally-formed heterojunction. With this inverted structure, the photovoltaic cell has the design potential increasing the light-incident surface texturing and it avoids...
In order to achieve a high efficient a-Si solar cell, the TCO (transparent conductive oxide) substrates are required to be a low sheet resistivity, a high transparency, and a textured surface with light trapping effect. Recently, a zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film attracts our attention as new coating material having a good transparent and conductive for TCO of solar cells1-2.
We have grown Si/Ge nanodot superlattices via low-pressure chemical vapor deposition in order to analyze their performance as thin-film solar cells. Self-assembled Ge nanodots are included in the base region in order to boost absorption of near-infrared photons and to increase short-circuit current density, Jsc. At a relatively low dot density of 5.5 ?? 109 cm-2, both 20- and 40-period cells exhibited...
An electroless chemical etching technique using polystyrene nanospheres as self-assembled mask is developed to fabricate size-controllable, periodic silicon nanopillars (NPs) and subsequent nanocones (NCs) arrays. The Si NCs are obtained based on the NPs structure using cost-effective ammonia-related etching chemistry. The diameter, height, and periodicity of the NCs can be systematically controlled...
We investigated Si nanowires (SiNWs) fabricated by wet etching and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), and core-shell structures, formed by depositing silicon layers around the SiNWs, with respect to their crystallinity, the doping level, and the influence of surface passivation on carrier lifetime. The effects expected to be critical to improve the performance of nanowire-based solar cells are discussed.
The aim of this paper is to present in-situ and cost-effective processes for crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells grown by high-temperature chemical vapour deposition on low-cost silicon substrates. The central approach is the epitaxial wafer-equivalent (EpiWE) cell structure, consisting of an epitaxial layer deposited on a low-cost silicon substrate. This EpiWE is then processed using a standard...
Polycrystalline Si (poly-Si) thin-film solar cells feature the potential to reach very high efficiencies at low costs. This paper addresses the development of poly-Si thin-film solar cells on ZnO:Al-coated glass substrates. This development is based on the fact that the properties of capped ZnO:Al layers stay the same (or even improve) upon annealing at temperatures far above the deposition temperature...
The state of the art in space solar cells utilizes epitaxially grown III-V multijunction cells with champion devices exceeding 30% efficiency under 1-sun. An array of self-organized InAs quantum dots (QD) within a GaAs matrix is one approach to enable significant efficiency improvements by extending the spectral bandwidth of the GaAs cell. In this paper, the surfactant effect of Te on the properties...
We report the fabrication of film c-Si solar cells on Si wafer templates by hot wire chemical vapor deposition. These devices, grown at glass-compatible temperatures below 750?? C, demonstrate open-circuit voltages greater than 500 mV and efficiencies above 5%. Analysis of the device characteristics and quantum efficiency provides important information about the epitaxial c-Si absorber material quality...
The cost of photovoltaic (PV) energy generation has been steadily reduced with the increase of solar cell power conversion efficiency and the drop of manufacturing cost. An effective way of lowering the cost of Si thin film solar cells is to increase the solar panel size by growing thin films on large area substrates, where it is important to maintain uniform film properties to ensure efficient and...
N-type thin-film polycrystalline-silicon solar cells were fabricated on alumina substrates. The polycrystalline silicon material was made by overdoping of AIC seed layers with phosphorus atoms followed by epitaxial thickening with low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) at 1000??C. The cells have i/p+ amorphous Si heterojunction emitters and show an average VOC of 455 mV, an average JSC of...
Single crystalline-like Ge films have been successfully grown on flexible polycrystalline substrates using templates created by ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD). No epitaxial growth was found to be possible when Ge is directly grown on MgO. However an intermediate layer of CeO2 was found to enable epitaxial growth of Ge. Also, textured Si has been demonstrated on CeO2-buffered IBAD templates on...
Epitaxial thin film silicon solar cell technology, consisting of a thin high quality epitaxial layer on top of a highly doped low-cost silicon substrate, is one of the most promising midterm alternatives for cost effective industrial solar cell manufacturing. Currently, CVD is used to grow the active layer. However, besides the growth of the base, also the emitter can be grown by CVD, which allows...
Thin Si solar cell with epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) structure described in this paper should demonstrate higher voltage. PC-1D program has been used to study the open circuit voltage and efficiency as a function of the thin Si thickness and light trapping. According to the simulation results, high voltage can be obtained even without light trapping on the backside of the thin Si layer. Thin...
Polycrystalline silicon still guarantees its application on solar cells as important market product until year 2050. Due to the increase of photovoltaic industry needing, technologies to produce low cost silicon will be needed. The metallurgical grade silicon (Si-GM) has been used to produce Si substrates by the atmospheric plasma thermal spray (APTS) which has the advantages of a low cost and fast...
Recently, great attention has been put on the possible applications of nanotechnology in photovoltaics. Here, we report room temperature growth of large area black silicon surface consisting of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) array with reflectivity reduced to < 4% in the entire spectral range (300-1000 nm) of interest for solar cells and fabrication of solar cell (n+pp+ structure) on such "black...
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