Performance and degradation of the (p)a-SiC:H/(i)a-Si:H/(n)a-Si:H solar cell: a computer modeling study

The computer code AMPS (analysis of microelectronic and photonic structures) has been used to study the performance of the (p)a-SiC:H/(i)a-Si:H/(n)a-Si:H heterojunction solar cell. The authors found initially that AMPS predicts for an ideal (p)a-Si:H/(i)a-Si:H/(n)a-Si:H heterojunction an open-circuit voltage V/sub oc/ value of about 1 V. However, experimental values of V/sub oc/ are around 0.8 V without (i)a-SiC:H buffer layers at the p/i interface and around 0.85 V with these buffer layers. The authors studied the possible origins of these lower experimentally observed values and have found that although higher concentrations of defect states anywhere in a cell can reduce V/sub oc/, the impact of these defect states on V/sub oc/ and fill factor (FF) is different according to their location.<>