Electrical properties of a-Si solar cells

The principal electrical properties that contribute to the operation of efficient metal/a-Si solar cells have been evaluated. Various metal/ a-Si Schottky barriers have been characterized in terms of barrier height, saturated current density, generation-recombination, built-in potential, and depletion width. The photovoltaic and photoconductive properties of the cell structures have been investigated. The dependence of photocurrents on wavelength and depletion width is presented and minority carrier diffusion effects are discussed.