Rеvuе des Energies Renouvelables
Volume 11, Numéro 3, Pages 379-384
2008-09-30

Influence Of Interfacial Oxide Layer Thickness On Conversion Efficiency Of Sno2/sio2/si(n) Solar Cells

Authors : Hocine D. . Belkaïd M.s. . Lagha K. .

Abstract

We have fabricated efficient and economical solar cells using tin oxide SnO2 deposited onto silicon substrate by Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapour Deposition (APCVD) technique. This low-cost process is of the interest to deposit an interfacial oxide (insulator) layer SiO2 with controlled thickness δ . It is observed that the presence of this interfacial layer considerably improves the open circuit voltage and the efficiency of the solar cell by reducing the dark current. In this paper, we studied the effects of interfacial oxide layer thickness δ on the efficiency and open circuit voltage of the SnO2/SiO2/Si(N) solar cells. From our analysis, we have found that the efficiency of the cells increases at first with the interfacial oxide layer thickness δ , and after acquiring a maximum value falls with a further increase of δ . We have experimentally optimized the interfacial layer thickness for maximum efficiency. The effect of substrate doping profile is also investigated. Finally, the results for our best solar cells are presented and analysed.

Keywords

APCVD, Heterostructure, Tin oxide, Optimization, Efficiency, Solar cell, Photovoltaic conversion.