Improved homogeneity of microcrystalline absorber layer in thin-film silicon tandem solar cells

A study of the effects of microcrystalline silicon i-layer modification near p/i interface in tandem configuration silicon thin film solar cells is presented. The structural properties of the absorber layers were investigated by Raman spectroscopy at different stages of growth. The results indicate the possibility of improving both the nucleation process and the film homogeneity in the direction of growth, without specific re-optimization of the p-layer, transferred from a single-junction microcrystalline silicon cell. Structural modifications of the i-layer have been correlated with performance of tandem solar cells, leading to improvements in the bottom cell current J(sc) (up to 11.4 mA/cm(2)) and initial tandem-cell conversion efficiency (up to 11.3%). (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.