Development of a-SiGe:H: from material characterization to multi-junction device

Multi-junction solar cells with Si alloys have true potential for high conversion efficiency, because of the spectrum splitting capability. For optimal spectral utilization, a multi-junction silicon based device needs a silicon alloy with a bandgap between that of nc-Si (1.1 eV) and a-Si (1.8 eV). a-SiGe:H has a tunable bandgap between 1.4-1.6 eV by varying the GeH4 flow rate in the layer. An investigation of deposition parameters on PECVD processed a-SiGe:H films showed that variation of the GeH4/SiH4 flow rate is the most influential deposition parameter to achieve bandgap tuning. It influences the optical-, electrical- and material properties due to the fact that it directly changes the GeH4 flow rate in the material. Subsequently, a n-i-p substrate single junction a-SiGe:H solar cell is fabricated. This is the reversed p-i-n superstrate a-SiGe:H solar cell, fabricated by the PVMD group. It has a Voc of 508 mV, a FF of 0.39, a Jsc of 9.9 mA/cm2 and a final efficiency of 2.9%. Due to the low performance, manipulation techniques were introduced. The different proposed shapes consist of bandgap grading in the absorber through GeH4 flow rate profiling. A study on buffer type and thickness, different profiling schemes, grading widths and total absorber thickness strongly improved the device performance. The overall champion single junction a-SiGe:H solar cell has a 3.2 nm n/i i-a-Si buffer combined with a 5 nm n/i i-a-SiGe:H buffer, a V-shape GeH4 peak flow rate of 2.4 sccm, a 134 nm n/i grading width, a 36 nm i/p grading width and a total absorber thickness of 170 nm. This cell generates a Voc of 735 mV, a FF of 0.64, a Jsc of 13.23 mA/cm2 and a final efficiency of 6.18%. This is a relative increase of 113.8% in efficiency. The single junction solar cell fabrication is followed by demonstration of a two-junction device. The overall champion tandem solar cell consists of a 200 nm a-Si:H top cell and a 170 nm a-SiGe:H bottom cell with a V-shape GeH4 peak flow rate of 5.3 sccm. This champion tandem solar cell generates a Voc of 1395 mV, a FF of 0.69, a current limiting Jsc of 8.34 mA/cm2 and a final efficiency of 7.99%. Finally, research proved that the change in top and bottom cell thickness, the maximum GeH4 flow rate and the U- and V-shape profiles are interesting manipulation techniques in a multi-junction device due to their flexibility to increase the current limiting Jsc and improve current matching.DISCOElectrical Engineering | Sustainable Energy Technolog