Sacrificial layer assisted front textured glass substrate with improved light management in thin film silicon solar cells

摘要

The surface morphology of the front transparent conductive oxide (TCO) films plays a vital role in amorphous silicon thin film solar cells due to their high transparency, conductivity and excellent light scattering properties. Low haze value (5.98%) and surface r.m.s roughness (3.07nm) are themajor issues of aluminium doped zinc oxide (AZO) films to be used as the front TCO due to ineffective scattering of light. Wet chemical texturization of glass substrates using aluminium doped zinc oxide (AZO) as the sacrificial layer was developed in this work to counter those issues. 45% haze and 134nm surface r.m.s roughness were achieved in AZO coated textured glass. The etched glass/AZO samples presented a much stronger light-scattering capability than the flat glass/AZO and they showed equivalent electrical properties with flat glass/AZO. Single junction amorphous silicon solar cells were fabricated on both flat and textured AZO coated glass substrate and an increment of short circuit current of similar to 12.96% was achieved due to scattering of light from the textured substrate into the cell.