Hydrogenated Fluorinated Microcrystalline Silicon Oxide (µc-SiO:F:H):A New Material for the Emitter Layer of HIT Solar cells

In the present article, the performance of heterojunction silicon solar cells with intrinsic thin buffer layers (HIT) has, for the first time, been improved via a fluorinated microcrystalline silicon oxide (μc-SiO:F:H) emitter layer. Using silicon tetrafluoride (SiF₄) in the deposition process of μc-SiO:F:H causes the formation of better crystallinity. μc-SiO:F:H has shown better properties in comparison with a-Si:H and μc-SiO:H in the emitter layer of HIT. Such properties include lower recombination rate and higher electrical conductivity cause of better crystallinity, because of SiF₄ that remove dangling bonds to have better passivation, other ones are better refractive index and extinction coefficient which lead to better absorption of incoming photons and increase in current and efficiency. As a result, through assessment and analysis of the three materials of a-Si:H, μc-SiO:H, and μc-SiO:F:H in the emitter layer, we found that the cell with the μc-SiO:F:H possesses a higher short circuit current (36.12mA/cm²) and an increase in short circuit current has caused an increase in the efficiency of the cell.