Potential of VHF-plasmas for low-cost production of a-Si:H solar cells

Compared to the use of the standard glow discharge technique the production of amorphous silicon solar cells by the very high frequency glow discharge (VHF-GD) bears yet additional cost reduction potentials: Using VHF-GD at excitation frequencies higher than 13.56 MHz, a more efficient dissociation of silane gas is obtained; thus, higher deposition rates are achieved; this reduces considerably the deposition time for intrinsic amorphous and microcrystalline silicon layers. Furthermore, by itself and even more so, in combination with argon dilution, VHF-GD technique improves silane utilisation and leads, thus, to further cost reduction. Finally, by combining the VHF-GD technique and the ''micromorph'' concept ''real'' tandem cells (i.e. a superposition of two cells with distinctly different band gaps) can be deposited at low temperatures without the use of expensive germane gas.