Temperature dependence of amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells

We evaluated the conduction mechanisms and temperature dependence of HIT (heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer) structure solar cells while changing the thickness of the undoped amorphous silicon layer. It was confirmed that the diffusion model determined the carrier transport property of this device at the high-forward-bias region (0.4 < V < 0.8 V), whereas the multistep tunneling model determined the current transport at the low-bias region (0.1 < V < 0.4 V). The insertion of the high-quality hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) i-layer is very important for suppressing the probabilities of tunneling through the localized states in a-Si:H and surface recombination velocity at the heterointerface. The better temperature dependence of output power of HIT structure solar cells than that of the crystalline silicon (c-Si) homojunction solar cell is caused mainly by the high-open circuit voltage that originates in the effectively suppressed saturation current with HIT structure, and also by the fill factor (F.F.), which is affected by the change in conductivity in the a-Si:H i-layer.