Amorphous silicon solar cell incorporating an insulating layer to suppress back diffusion of holes into an N-type region and method of fabrication thereof

摘要

In an hydrogenated amorphous silicon solar cell which includes a body of hydrogenated amorphous silicon having layers of differing conductivity (14,16 and 20) with an interface between a photoactive intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon layer (16) and an incident N-type layer (20) of hydrogenated amorphous silicon, the back diffusion of holes into the N-type layer is reduced by positioning between the photoactive layer (16) and the N-type layer (20) a thin layer (18) of insulator material, such as Si3N4 or Si02. The solar cell is advantageously fabricated in a glow discharge apparatus.