Growth Difference of Amorphous Silicon Between Plasma Enhanced and Catalytic CVD Based on Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

The microstructure evolution of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films, deposited by plasma enhanced (PE) and catalytic (CAT) chemical vapor deposition, have been investigated with the increasing thickness. It has been found that crystallites prone to present in the initial growth of a-Si:H deposited by CAT method, whose film has a more compact structure and stronger bonding energy than the film deposited by PE method. At a premise of same conversion efficiency, open circuit voltage and fill factor of the silicon heterojunction solar cells fabricated by CAT are higher than that of the cell fabricated by PE.