Deposition of microcrystalline silicon solar cells via the pulsed PECVD technique

Abstract In this paper, we report the deposition of microcrystalline Si materials and microcrystalline n–i–p and p–i–n devices via the Pulsed PECVD technique. The crystallite orientation of the films changes from a random orientation to (2 2 0) orientation near the microcrystalline-to-amorphous transition. The observed change in orientation ( 2 2 0 vs. 1 1 1 ) is correlated with the solar cell performance, with the best efficiency seen for (2 2 0) oriented i-layers. The role of ion bombardment and grain boundary interfaces on the VOC of these devices is also investigated.