High-deposition-rate amorphous silicon solar cells: silane or disilane?

Abstract

We report a comparison study of high-deposition-rate (approximately 2 nm s⁻¹) amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells using silane (SiH₄) and disilane (Si₂H₆) source gases. Our results show that under optimized deposition conditions, films deposited from silane or disilane at the same deposition rate have similar properties. Efficiencies higher than 10% have been achieved in both cases for 1 cm² area single-junction solar cells. The key for achieving high efficiency, high-deposition-rate, solar cells using SiH₄ source gas is the p-i interface.