Hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon: how to correlate layer properties and solar cell performance

Undoped hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) layers and cells have been deposited by plasma chemical vapour deposition at low temperature at different powers and silane dilutions. Electronic transport properties and defect density of the layers have been compared to the cell performances to identify the important material properties for solar cell applications. A correlation is found between the defect density, μ⁰τ⁰ quality parameter, and cell efficiency. Anisotropy of the transport properties in some μc-Si:H is also demonstrated.