Spanish researchers have developed an n-type crystalline silicon solar cell based on a thin film of vanadium oxide deposited by atomic layer deposition. The open circuit voltage of the battery is 631 mV, the short-circuit current is 38.36 mA cm-², and the fill factor is 75.8%.
Schematic diagram of n-type crystalline silicon solar cell.
Image: Material Advances, Creative Commons License CC BY 3.0, https://bit.ly/3qqkPbU
Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Spain have fabricated a crystalline silicon solar cell based on a vanadium oxide (V2O5) thin film as a hole selection layer.
The novelty of their method is the use of atomic layer deposition (ALD) instead of thermal evaporation to deposit thin films. When the manufacturing process for constructing V2O5 crystalline photovoltaic devices reaches an industrial scale, the former is said to create potential scalability problems because it requires the addition of a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) passivation layer.
"The Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) process provides a soft and low-temperature deposition technology compatible with solar cell manufacturing, and it allows conformal deposition of thin films. Compared with the thermal evaporation process, it has a higher degree of scalability for industrial production. "The Spanish team explained. "In addition, the excellent surface passivation provided by vanadium oxide films on silicon substrates has potential advantages, which can overcome the need to use amorphous silicon films as passivation interlayers, thereby eliminating manufacturing steps and reducing overall costs."
The solar cell consists of a high-quality floating area n-type c-Si wafer and a 4 nm thick V2O5 layer. The deposition process is carried out at 125 degrees Celsius and the vanadium precursor is heated to 58 degrees Celsius. The 70 nm thick indium tin oxide (ITO) film is deposited using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering, a high-speed vacuum coating technology that can deposit many types of materials, including metals and ceramics. Then a 200 nm thick silver layer was thermally evaporated on the ITO film.
The power conversion efficiency of the solar cell is 18.6%, the open circuit voltage is 631 mV, the short-circuit current is 38.36 mA cm-2, and the fill factor is 75.8%. The scientists emphasized: “The top solar cells have achieved an efficiency of up to 19% without passivation of amorphous silicon and achieved significant performance parameters.” “Technical improvements in battery manufacturing, such as better electrical ITO layers Quality and/or thicker silver grids can improve current efficiency."
The device was published in the paper "Atomic Layer Deposition of Vanadium Oxide Thin Films for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells" published on Material Advances.
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