Annealing of Boron-Doped Hydrogenated Crystalline Silicon Grown at Low Temperature by PECVD.

We investigate low-temperature (<200 °C) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) for the formation of p-n junctions. Compared to the standard diffusion or implantation processes, silicon growth at low temperature by PECVD ensures a lower thermal budget and a better control of the doping profile. We previously demonstrated the successful growth of boron-doped epitaxial silicon layers (p+ epi-Si) at 180 °C.

New Earth-Abundant Thin Film Solar Cells Based on Chalcogenides.

At the end of 2017 roughly 1.8% of the worldwide electricity came from solar photovoltaics (PV), which is foreseen to have a key role in all major future energy scenarios with an installed capacity around 5 TW by 2050. Despite silicon solar cells currently rule the PV market, the extremely more versatile thin film-based devices (mainly Cu(In,Ga)Se and CdTe ones) have almost matched them in performance and present room for improvement.

In-depth photoluminescence spectra of pure CIGS thin films.

Photoluminescence spectra of pure CIGS thin films with different Ga in-depth gradients are systematically investigated. Pure Na-free films are prepared with an innovative hybrid deposition technique, whose optical luminescence emission is analyzed as a function of the depth and is correlated to the radiative intrinsic defects of the material. Finally, the highlighted features are correlated with the performances of test solar cells prepared with the same growths.

Gallium In-Depth Profile in Bromine- Etched Copper-Indium-Galium-(Di)selenide (CIGS) Thin Films Inspected Using Raman Spectroscopy.

In the thin film solar cells domain, copper indium galium (di)selenide (CIGS) is a material with well-established photovoltaic purpose. Here the presence of a suitable [Ga]/([Ga]+[In]) (GGI) in-depth profile has proved to play a key role in the performance of cells. The implementation of a routine method based on reliable but easily available experimental techniques is mandatory to obtain information on the GGI profile of any CIGS layer, in order to achieve high efficiency chalcogenide layers.