Ricerc@Sapienza

Recently a-SiOx:H has attracted interest in heterojunction solar cells fabrication, because of its effective crystalline silicon surface passivation and larger optical bandgap than a-Si:H. Both amorphous layers are commonly deposited by PECVD from silane dissociation in hydrogen dilution. to obtain a-SiOx:H film, CO2 as source of oxygen is added to gas mixture, that heavily modifies the film growth, the composition and hydrogen inclusion, which influence the passivation properties.

In crystalline silicon based heterojunction solar cells the surface passivation quality is fundamental to obtain high efficiency. Intrinsic a-Si:H, as obtained by PECVD process from silane dissociation, is a good candidate for surface passivation, but UV absorption of this material limits the current generation. Moreover, surface passivation quality can be compromised when fabrication steps, following the a-Si:H deposition, exceed the a-Si:H deposition temperature.

The adoption of a-SiOx:H films obtained by PECVD in heterojunction solar cells is a key to further increase their efficiency, because of its transparency in the UV with respect to the commonly used a-Si:H. At the same time this layer must guarantee high surface passivation of the c-Si to be suitable in high efficiency solar cell manufacturing. On the other hand the application of amorphous materials like a-Si:H and SiNx on the cell frontside expose them to the mostly energetic part of the sun spectrum, leading to a metastability of their passivation properties.