Hot wire deposited hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cells

This paper details the results of a study in which low H content, high deposition rate hot wire (HW) deposited amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) has been incorporated into a substrate solar cell. We find that the treatment of the top surface of the HW i layer while it is being cooled from its high deposition temperature is crucial to device performance. We present data concerning these surface treatments, and we correlate these treatments with Schottky device performance. We also present first generation HW n-i-p solar cell efficiency data, where a glow discharge (GD) μc-Si(p) layer was added to complete the partial devices. No light trapping layer was used to increase the device Jsc. Our preliminary investigations have yielded efficiencies of up to 6.8% for a cell with a 4000 Å thick HW i-layer, which degrade less than 10% after a 900 h AM1 light soak. We suggest avenues for further improvement of our devices