《Transparent conducting oxide films for thin film silicon photovoltaics.》.pdf

Transparent conducting oxide films for thin film silicon photovoltaics W. Beyer, J. Hüpkes and H. Stiebig IEF-5 Photovoltaik, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, D-52425 Jülich, Germany Abstract Requirements for application of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films in thin film silicon solar cells are reviewed with a focus on sputtered Al doped zinc oxide films. TCO films are employed as a front contact and as part of a highly reflective back contact so that the silicon absorber layer is embedded by TCO films.. Optoelectronic properties of TCO layers and their influence on the solar cell performance are discussed. In addition, recent results on stability issues of such films, solar cells and solar modules are presented. Keywords: zinc oxide, stability, solar cell, solar module, amorphous silicon, microcrystalline silicon 1. Introduction Silicon thin film solar cells are presently produced at a level of 80 – 100 MW per year which is about 5 % of the world solar cell production. They have an efficiency of typically 5 to 7 % and are predominantly based on amorphous silicon as the absorber material. In recent time, great efforts are undertaken worldwide to develop tandem solar cells with amorphous and microcrystalline Si absorber layers. For this type of solar cells, module efficiencies 10 % appear feasible. In particular in Germany, the up-scaling of thin film Si solar cell production is in progress, as the installation of production capacitance of more than 200 MW per year has been announced. It is hoped that by mass production of thin film silicon solar cells, the price of photovoltaics based electricity can be reduced significantly. Besides the silicon absorber layers, transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films are also important components of thin film Si solar cells. Such highly conducting TCO layers are commonly used as contact layers of pin