Optimal indium tin oxide layer as anti reflection coating for crystalline silicon solar cell with shallow emitter

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) with a refractive index of 1.9 is an appropriate material for the anti reflection coating (ARC) layer of solar cells. In this report, we present a cost effective and low temperature approach to fabricate a crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cell with a low resistance and highly transparent ITO ARC layer. Deposition conditions of ITO film by RF magnetron sputtering were varied to investigate the best condition for crystalline silicon solar cell application. Optical and electrical properties of the ITO film deposited under the best condition resulted in transmittance of 93.23%, reflectance of 3.23% and resistivity of 3 × 10− 4 Ω-cm. The result is comparable to the SiNX layer widely used as ARC material in the crystalline silicon solar cell fabrication process. ITO film formed a perfect ohmic contact with the emitter layer with high surface concentration. Finally, a solar cell was fabricated with best deposition condition of ITO on the emitter layer with a sheet resistance of 100 Ω/□. We obtained open circuit voltage of 600 mV, short circuit current of 36.15 mA/cm2 and conversion efficiency of 16.8% under this condition.