Plasma treatment to improve amorphous silicon solar cell´s performance

Amorphous silicon-based solar cell is usually composed of two or three multi-junctions, and each of them is formed by a p-layer, an intrinsic layer (i-layer), and an n-layer. The interfaces formed by these layers have been found to play a key role in determining cell performance. Among the interfaces, the p/i interface can be more obviously influential on cell performance, such as open circuit voltage (V_oc), fill factor (FF), etc. This is because holes have much low mobility compared with electrons, thus they are more sensitive to the quality of the p/i interfaces. In this study, we reported results about making use of hydrogen plasma treatment to improve quality of the p/i interface, and finally increasing energy conversion efficiency. Our results show that FF can be obviously increased after the plasma treatment at proper powers. We have increased the energy conversion efficiency by 7% compared to that of the sample without plasma treatment. This study developed one way to optimize amorphous silicon-based solar cell.