Influence of base pressure and atmospheric contaminants on a-Si:H solar cell properties

The influence of atmospheric contaminants oxygen and nitrogen on the performance of thin-film hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition at 13.56 MHz was systematically investigated. The question is addressed as to what degree of high base pressures (up to 10(-4) Torr) are compatible with the preparation of good quality amorphous silicon based solar cells. The data show that for the intrinsic a-Si: H absorber layer exists critical oxygen and nitrogen contamination levels (about 2 x 10(19) atoms/cm(3) and 4 x 10(18) atoms/cm(3), respectively). These levels define the minimum impurity concentration that causes a deterioration in solar cell performance. This critical concentration is found to depend little on the applied deposition regime. By enhancing, for example, the flow of process gases, a higher base pressure (and leak rate) can be tolerated before reaching the critical contamination level. The electrical properties of the corresponding films show that increasing oxygen and nitrogen contamination results in an increase in dark conductivity and photoconductivity, while activation energy and photosensitivity are decreased. These effects are attributed to nitrogen and oxygen induced donor states, which cause a shift of the Fermi level toward the conduction band and presumably deteriorate the built-in electric field in the solar cells. Higher doping efficiencies are observed for nitrogen compared to oxygen. Alloying effects (formation of SiO(x)) are observed for oxygen contaminations above 10(20) atoms/cm(3), leading to an increase in the band gap. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3009384]