Towards 400 mV ALICIA thin-film silicon solar cells on glass

Polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) is a promising candidate for thin-film photovoltaics. In this paper, the advantages, evolution of the technology, and the latest results of ALICIA pc-Si solar cells on glass are presented. ALICIA stands for aluminium-induced crystallisation ion-assisted deposition. In the ALICIA technology, a polycrystalline seed layer is formed on borosilicate glass by AIC (aluminium-induced crystallisation) and epitaxially thickened by non-ultra-high vacuum ion-assisted deposition (IAD). The key factors which led to the improvement of the open-circuit voltage from 130 mV in June 2003 to 386 mV in June 2004 are discussed. Furthermore, an ALICIA solar cell with a 1-Sun energy conversion efficiency of 2.2 % is presented. The short-circuit current density is 11.4 mA/cm/sup 2/ and the V/sub oc/ is 380 mV. These results were achieved by an optimisation of the temperature profile of the epitaxial growth process, by rapid thermal annealing (RTA), and by an increased hydrogenation temperature (/spl sim/480 /spl deg/C). The presented results confirm that ALICIA is a very promising thin-film PV technology.