Inline deposited thin-film silicon solar cells on imprinted foil using linear PECVD sources

Abstract The standard way to improve the light management of thin film solar cells is to introduce a light scattering structure, either on the front window or at the back reflector. Usually, growth conditions of TCO layers are adjusted to get random surface roughness on the front window. In this paper we present an alternative method, which can be applied both on the front window and at the back reflector. It involves imprinting a UV curable coating layer allowing full control on the texture (random or periodic) to fully optimise the light trapping. Light trapping is even more important for microcrystalline Si solar cells. We have fabricated thin film nip Si solar cells with sputtered Ag/ZnO back contacts on embossed barrier layers on steel foil. We show that the UV curable coating is well-suited as imprintable barrier layer between the steel foil and the active layers. For nip a-Si cells we can obtain light trapping, as measured by the short-circuit current, that is almost as good as that of nip a-Si cells made on Asahi U-type glass, covered with a Ag/ZnO back reflector. Furthermore, we show that dynamically processed a-Si nip cells on foil realised efficiencies of over 7%, which are only slightly less than for cells made in a UHV lab-scale cluster tool in static processing. Finally, a-Si/a-Si tandems and μc-Si/a-Si tandems have been fabricated. Initial efficiencies of around 8% on textured barrier layer on steel foil have been achieved.