INVESTIGATION OF AZO AS TRANSPARENT CONDUCTIVE OXIDE FOR HETEROJUNCTION SOLAR CELLS

摘要

Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells consisting of amorphous silicon and crystalline silicon arepromising elements for high efficiency and low cost devices. So far, indium tin oxide (ITO) has been the mostcommon applied transparent conductive oxide (TCO), used for fabrication of such structures. One way to furtherimprove the SHJ solar cells is replacing the ITO material which could also reduce the production cost. In this respect,we report on ITO free SHJ solar cells by using aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) films. As the AZO films arepolycrystalline material, evolution of larger grain takes place within the thickness. This suggests that the thicknessoptimization is a key parameter to satisfy the required sheet resistance. In this study, we have investigated the effectof AZO film thickness on the electrical properties of the obtained SHJ solar cells. Moreover, we demonstrated that bytexturing the AZO films, additional light trapping is achieved which is another advantage of the AZO films,compared to the common TCO material.