Simple and fast fabrication of a-Si:H/c-Si hetero-junction solar cells by dual-chamber hot wire chemical vapor deposition

•A dual-chamber deposition system for a fast fabrication of HJ c-Si solar cells.•Reduced processing overhead time compared to that of conventional system.•Feasibility demonstration: HJ c-Si solar cell with a moderate efficiency of 15.5%.•Additional analyses promised further efficiency improvement.

One of the fabrication issues in hetero-junction crystalline Si solar cells is the overhead time between the deposition steps of the top and bottom surfaces, because flipping of the progressing wafer is necessary to process the both sides of the wafer. To reduce the overall processing time by reducing the overhead time, we propose a dual-chamber deposition system, where thin films on the top and bottom surfaces of the Si wafer are simultaneously deposited. We have evaluated the proposed deposition system by demonstrating fabricated hetero-junction crystalline Si solar cells, which were compared with solar cells fabricated by a conventional plasma-enhanced chemical deposition system. We have obtained the power conversion efficiency of 15.5% from solar cells fabricated by our dual-chamber system; and additional analyses confirmed that the proposed dual-chamber system is, in principle, competitive with conventional systems in terms of the fabricated solar cell performance. This novel concept for the fabrication of a hetero-junction crystalline Si solar cell is expected to lay an important foundation in the future thin film crystalline Si based photovoltaic industry.

Graphical abstractOne of the fabrication issues in hetero-junction crystalline Si solar cells is the overhead time between the deposition steps of the top and bottom surfaces. To reduce the overall processing time by reducing the overhead time, we propose a dual-chamber deposition system, where thin films on the top and bottom surfaces of the Si wafer are simultaneously deposited.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide