Amorphous and microcrystalline silicon solar cells prepared at high deposition rates using RF (13.56 MHz) plasma excitation frequencies

This paper presents a-Si:H and μc-Si:H p–i–n solar cells prepared at high deposition rates using RF (13.56 MHz) excitation frequency. A high deposition pressure was found as the key parameter to achieve high efficiencies at high growth rates for both cell types. Initial efficiencies of 7.1% and 11.1% were achieved for a μc-Si:H cell and an a-Si:H/μc-Si:H tandem cell, respectively, at a deposition rate of 6 Å/s for the μc-Si i-layers. A μc-Si:H cell prepared at 9 Å/s exhibited an efficiency of 6.2%.