Electrical properties improvement of multicrystalline silicon solar cells using a combination of porous silicon and vanadium oxide treatment

• Published in: Applied surface science 2013-04, Vol.271, p.234-239
• Main Authors: Derbali, L., Ezzaouia, H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Conversion efficiency; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; IQE; Multicrystalline silicon; Passivation; Photoluminescence; Physics; Porous silicon; WTC-120 lifetime tester
• ISSN: 0169-4332; 1873-5584
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2013.01.166

► Passivation of multicrystalline silicon front surface and grain boundaries and improvement of the photoluminescence of the porous silicon structure. ► An efficient antireflection coating (ARC) which enhances the solar cell performances. ► The effective minority carrier lifetime have been improved noticeably after annealing deposited films. In this paper, we will report the enhancement of the conversion efficiency of multicrystalline silicon solar cells after coating the front surface with a porous silicon layer treated with vanadium oxide. The incorporation of vanadium oxide into the porous silicon (PS) structure, followed by a thermal treatment under oxygen ambient, leads to an important decrease of the surface reflectivity, a significant enhancement of the effective minority carrier lifetime (τeff) and a significant enhancement of the photoluminescence (PL) of the PS structure. We Obtained a noticeable increase of (τeff) from 3.11μs to 134.74μs and the surface recombination velocity (Seff) have decreased from 8441cms−1 to 195cms−1. The reflectivity spectra of obtained films, performed in the 300–1200nm wavelength range, show an important decrease of the average reflectivity from 40% to 5%. We notice a significant improvement of the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) in the used multicrystalline silicon substrates. Results are analyzed and compared to those carried out on a reference (untreated) sample. The electrical properties of the treated silicon solar cells were improved noticeably as regard to the reference (untreated) sample.