Photovoltaic Technology - α-Si and μc-Si Thin Film PV

Amorphous Si (α-Si), microcrystalline Si (μc-Si), nanocrystalline Si (nc-Si), amorphous SiGe (α-SiGe), and microcrystalline SiC (μc-SiC), all with H, are thin film materials that can make up thin film PV stacks ranging from simple α-Si thin film PV to more complex tandem and multi-junction thin film PV. α-Si has been one of the oldest thin film PV commercial technologies, but with relatively low cell efficiency after light-induced degradation. The addition of the other thin film materials are intended to increase the efficiency by converting more of the sun’s spectrum and by reducing the light-induced degradation. The main areas of improvement are stable efficiency increases towards 10%, and scale up to reliable and uniform large scale manufacturing.

The schematic of the α-Si Thin Film PV device structure (below) illustrates some of the ways surface analysis can help. Please move your mouse over the boxes below for more information or click here and download the application discussion.

Additional Information

• Amorphous Si (α-Si), microcrystalline Si (μc-Si) Application Discussion
• Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) Technique Note TN101
• Time-of-Flight SIMS (TOF-SIMS) Technique Note TN104
• Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) Technique Note TN103
• X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) Technique Note TN100
• Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) Technique Note TN110
• Characterization of Amorphous Silicon Using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) AN427
• Analysis of Contaminants by DHS/GC/MS AN385
• Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) Characterization of an Ultra-thin Multilayer Film AN450
• Identification of Interface Contamination Using Field Emission Auger Electron Spectroscopy (FE-AES) AN445
• Organic Contamination on Surfaces AN378
• Physical and Chemical Characterization of Multi-layer Thin Films AN353
• Semiconductor Structural Studies by Raman Spectroscopy AN334
• SIMS Detection Limits of Selected Elements in ZnO Under Normal Depth Profiling Conditions AN426
• Characterization of Surface Contamination BN1365