Silicon nitride and intrinsic amorphous silicon double antireflection coatings for thin-film solar cells on foreign substrates.

Hydrogenated intrinsic amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) was investigated as a surface passivation method for crystalline silicon thin film solar cells on graphite substrates. The results of the experiments, including quantum efficiency and current density–voltage measurements, show improvements in cell performance. This improvement is due to surface passivation by an a-Si:H( i ) layer, which increases the open circuit voltage and the fill factor. In comparison with our previous work, we have achieved an increase of 0.6% absolute cell efficiency for a 40 μm thick 4 cm 2 aperture area on the graphite substrate. The optical properties of the SiN x /a-Si:H( i ) stack were studied using spectroscopic ellipsometer techniques. Scanning transmission electron microscopy inside a scanning electron microscope was applied to characterize the cross section of the SiN x /a-Si:H( i ) stack using focus ion beam preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]