Effect of proton irradiation and subsequent thermal annealing on the characteristics of thin-film silicon solar cells and microcrystalline silicon layers

In an earlier paper, the authors had reported on the results of a proton irradiation campaign on a series of thin-film silicon solar cells (single- and double-junction). There, a low-temperature annealing was discovered for the microcrystalline silicon solar cells. The present paper links these earlier results with recent investigations on newly irradiated individual microcrystalline layers: the effect of proton irradiation and subsequent thermal annealing steps on the optical and electronic properties of these microcrystalline silicon layers is investigated in detail and is shown to correlate well with the results reported earlier for full cells.