Computer simulation of a-Si:H p-i-n solar cells having a microcrystalline silicon p-layer and their analysis

An integrated electrical-optical model has been used to analyze the performance of hydrogenated amorphous silicon p-i-n solar cells having a hydrogenated microcrystalline silicon (mu c-Si:H) player (window). Our attempts to simulate various experimentally measured solar cell characteristics of such cells available in the literature, indicate that for the same thickness, mu c-Si:H players may have different mobility band gaps (E-mu), which may be linked to different crystalline volume fractions (F-c), Modeling reveals that there is both an optimum value for E-mu (therefore F-c), as well as an optimum thickness of the mu c-Si:H player, for obtaining the best solar cell performance, A thin (8 to 10 nm) film having a rather low crystalline volume fraction (high E-mu) was found from our computer analysis to give the best results.