https://doi.org/10.1051/epjpv/2016006
Influence of patterning the TCO layer on the series resistance of thin film HIT solar cells
1 Université de Lyon, Institut des
Nanotechnologies de Lyon INL – UMR 5270 CNRS, INSA Lyon, 69621
Villeurbanne,
France
2 École Centrale de Lyon, 36 Avenue Guy
de Collongue, 69134
Ecully Cedex,
France
a e-mail: fabien.mandorlo@insa-lyon.fr
Received:
25
August
2016
Received in final form:
23
November
2016
Accepted:
28
November
2016
Published online: 16 January 2017
Thin HIT solar cells combine efficient surface passivation and high open circuit voltage leading to high conversion efficiencies. They require a TCO layer in order to ease carriers transfer to the top surface fingers. This Transparent Conductive Oxide layer induces parasitic absorption in the low wavelength range of the solar spectrum that limits the maximum short circuit current. In case of thin film HIT solar cells, the front surface is patterned in order to increase the effective life time of photons in the active material, and the TCO layer is often deposited with a conformal way leading to additional material on the sidewalls of the patterns. In this article, we propose an alternative scheme with a local etching of both the TCO and the front a-Si:H layers in order to reduce the parasitic absorption. We study how the local resistivity of the TCO evolves as a function of the patterns, and demonstrate how the increase of the series resistance can be compensated in order to increase the conversion efficiency.
© R. Champory et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2017
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted
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