Effect of Intrinsic Amorphous Layer Thickness and Annealing on the Performance of Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

The thickness of the intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon layer in the SHJ cell is a critical parameter in determining the characteristics of the SHJ devices. Thicker intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon layers yield better Voc but increase the optical and resistive losses in the device. In this work, we have investigated the effect of intrinsic amorphous silicon layer thickness and the influence of post-deposition annealing treatment on the performance of SHJ solar cells. The thicker intrinsic amorphous silicon layer yields S-shape characteristics in the light J-V curve. Reducing the i-layer thickness from 8 nm to 6 nm no such characteristics appears in light J-V. Annealing of the SHJ devices further improves the PV parameters for both devices. TLM technique is employed to investigate the reason behind the improved Voc and FF after annealing. Finally, an SHJ device with an efficiency of ~16.76% is fabricated with an optimum thickness of intrinsic amorphous silicon layer on the plain silicon wafer.