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Porous Polycrystalline Silicon Thin Film Solar Cells [electronic resource] : Final Report, 24 May 1999--24 May 2002.

Pv; Silicon Thin Films; Devices; Solar Cells; Antireflective (Ar) Coating; Electrochemical Etching; Porous Silicon (Psi); Photoluminescence; Short-Circuit Current; Open-Circuit Voltage; Solar Energy - Photovoltaics.

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Bibliographic Details
Online Access:	Online Access (via OSTI)
Format:	Government Document Electronic eBook
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, D.C. : Oak Ridge, Tenn. : United States. Department of Energy ; distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Department of Energy, 2003.
Subjects:	Coatings. Electrical Properties. Morphology. Optical Properties. Photoluminescence. Sensitivity. Silicon. Solar Cells. P-N Junctions. Thin Films. Trapping. Substrates. Tuning. Solar Energy. Materials Science.

Description
Summary:	Pv; Silicon Thin Films; Devices; Solar Cells; Antireflective (Ar) Coating; Electrochemical Etching; Porous Silicon (Psi); Photoluminescence; Short-Circuit Current; Open-Circuit Voltage; Solar Energy - Photovoltaics.
Abstract:	The initial focus of this project was to build on previous work performed in our group and investigate the use of porous polycrystalline silicon (Psi) as an active material in a solar cell to take advantage of potential bandgap tuning, light trapping, and blue-harvesting photoluminescence effects. However, through our work on various substrate materials, we have found that the electrical characteristics of thick (several microns) PSi layers needed for active devices are extremely sensitive to the substrate doping profiles and crystalline morphology. This sensitivity makes reproducibility difficult even in a well-controlled research environment, and therefore, prospects for commercial thick-film PSi devices are limited. We have now focused our investigation on the use of thin PSi layers for antireflective coating applications. By isolating these layers in the heavily doped surface region of a solar cell, the electrical properties of the p-n junction are relatively unaffected. Provided that good electrical contacts can be made to the material under the porous layer, the electrical properties of the PSi film are not critical, and only the optical properties need to be optimized.
Item Description:	Published through SciTech Connect. 10/01/2003. "nrel/sr-520-34824" "AAD-9-18668-06" Fauchet, P. National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO. (US)
Physical Description:	20 pp. pages : digital, PDF file.