A wide variety of liquid and solid phase crystallized silicon films are investigated in order to determine the performance limiting defect types in crystalline silicon thin-film solar cells. Complementary characterization methods, such as electron spin resonance, photoluminescence, and electron microscopy, yield the densities of dangling bond defects and dislocations which are correlated with the electronic material quality in terms of solar cell open circuit voltage. The results indicate that the strongly differing performance of small-grained solid and large-grain liquid phase crystallized silicon can be explained by intra-grain defects like dislocations rather than grain boundary dangling bonds. A numerical model is developed containing both defect types, dislocations and dangling bonds, describing the experimental results.

Performances of thin film polycrystalline silicon solar cell grown on glass substrate, using solid phase crystallization of amorphous silicon can be limited by low dopant activation and high density of defects. Here, we investigate line shaped laser induced thermal annealing to passivate some of these defects in the sub-melt regime. Effect of laser power and scan speed on the open circuit voltage of the polysilicon solar cells is reported. The processing temperature was measured by thermal imaging camera. Enhancement of the open circuit voltage as high as 210% is achieved using this method. The results are discussed.

The present article gives a summary of recent technological and scientific developments in the field of polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film solar cells on foreign substrates. Cost-effective fabrication methods and cheap substrate materials make poly-Si thin-film solar cells promising candidates for photovoltaics. However, it is still the challenge for research and development to achieve the necessary high electrical material quality known from crystalline Si wafers on glass as a prerequisite to harvest the advantages of thin-film technologies. A wide variety of poly-Si thin-film solar cell approaches has been investigated in the past years, such as thermal solid phase crystallization – the only technology that had already been matured to industrial production so far – the seed layer concept where a large-grained seed layer is epitaxially thickened, direct growth of fine grained material, and liquid phase crystallization methods by laser or electron beam. In the first part of this paper, the status of these four different poly-Si thin-film solar cell concepts is summarized, by comparing the technological fabrication methods, as well as the structural and electrical properties and solar cell performances of the respective materials. In the second part, three promising technologies are described in more detail due to their highly auspicious properties regarding material quality and throughput aspects during fabrication: (1) High-rate electron–beam evaporation of silicon for the low-cost deposition of high-quality material, (2) large-area periodic nano- and micro-structuring of poly-Si by the use of imprinted substrates providing a large absorption enhancement by a factor of six at a wavelength of 900nm, (3) liquid-phase crystallization of silicon thin-film solar cells by electron–beam, yielding an excellent poly-Si material quality reflected by an open-circuit voltage of 582mV which has been achieved only very recently. A successful combination of these three complementary technologies is envisaged to be the basis for a prospective low-cost and highly efficient poly-Si solar cell device.

We investigate the characteristics of intra-grain and grain boundary defects in polycrystalline Si films, by employing quantitative electron paramagnetic resonance measurements on liquid phase crystallized layers with an average grain size of 200 mu m and tailored solid phase crystallized Si layers with similar intra-grain morphology but systematically varied grain sizes between 0.25 mu m and 1 mu m. The defect characteristics are found to be composed of two distinctive g -values of g = 2.0055 and 2.0032, which are attributed to grain boundary defects and intra-grain defects, respectively. Additional hydrogenation leads to a reduction of the overall defect concentration, while a rapid thermal annealing process primarily heals intra-grain defects. ((c) 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Subbandgap defects in polycrystalline silicon thin films are investigated using photothermal deflection spectroscopy and photoluminescence. By applying rapid thermal annealing and hydrogen passivation, samples of different material quality are fabricated. An increasing defect absorption with increasing annealing temperature was measured, although the open circuit voltage of the respective solar cells was improved. The results are compared to photoluminescence and Raman spectra. An inverse correlation between the radiative and non-radiative recombination processes in the subbandgap energy regime was found. Raman measurements show that the structural order is disturbed by hydrogen passivation, although the material quality is improved. These contradictory trends show that an investigation by solely one of these characterization methods is not suitable for determining the material quality of solid phase crystallized poly-Si thin films.

A variety of defect healing methods was analyzed for optimization of polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film solar cells on glass. The films were fabricated by solid phase crystallization of amorphous silicon deposited either by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) or by electron-beam evaporation (EBE). Three different rapid thermal processing (RTP) set-ups were compared: A conventional rapid thermal annealing oven, a dual wavelength laser annealing system and a movable two sided halogen lamp oven. The two latter processes utilize focused energy input for reducing the thermal load introduced into the glass substrates and thus lead to less deformation and impurity diffusion. Analysis of the structural and electrical properties of the poly-Si thin films was performed by Suns-V-oc measurements and Raman spectroscopy. 1 cm(2) cells were prepared for a selection of samples and characterized by I-V-measurements. The poly-Si material quality could be extremely enhanced, resulting in increase of the open circuit voltages from about 100 mV (EBE) and 170 mV (PECVD) in the untreated case up to 480 mV after processing. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-films have the potential to overcome the limits of today's silicon thin-film solar cell technology because of the chance to grow high-quality material by low-cost deposition techniques. As poly-Si thin-film fabrication is independent of rather slow and costly PECVD processes, it is possible to switch to physical high-rate deposition methods such as electron-beam (e-beam) evaporation exhibiting a strong cost-saving potential. In this contribution, the challenges and opportunities of two different poly-Si solar cell preparation techniques using e-beam evaporated silicon are investigated: Thermal solid phase crystallization (SPC) of initially amorphous silicon layers, and direct growth of poly-Si films at elevated temperatures >500 °C. For both approaches, attention is given to the interplay between substrate texture, structure of the grown silicon and the final solar cell performance. Poly-Si thin film solar cells with 7.8% conversion efficiency were prepared on a smooth substrate in cooperation with CSG solar, demonstrating the equality of e-beam evaporation as deposition technique compared to PECVD. However since e-beam evaporation leads to a non-conformal deposition of rough surfaces, the implementation of a textured substrate for light trapping is highly desired but still challenging. A different behavior is observed for poly-Si thin films directly grown at higher temperatures. For the best photovoltaic performance, a certain substrate microstructure is even necessary and can be optimized by the use of glass coated by differently textured ZnO films as substrate.