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Photocarrier Transport and Recombination in Amorphous Silicon

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The effect of microstructure in undoped a-Si:H films on carrier transport, recombination, densities of midgap states and solar cell characteristics has been investigated. Extended state mobilities of electrons were obtained from photo and dark conductivity measurements between 40° C and 190° C and the gap states characterized using Dual Beam Photoconductivity. In these films the estimated room temperature electron mobilities increase from about 1 to 30 cm2/V sec as the dihydride concentrations and void volume fractions decrease. It is found that the carrier mobility-lifetime products are not solely determined by the dangling bond states. The effects of changes in the mobilities and midgap states on p-i-n homojunction solar cell characteristics are presented and discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank S. Nag for thin film deposition and C. Fortmann and S. Fonash for many helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Electrical Power Research Institute Thin Film Solar Cell Program, and a NEDO International Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Electronic Materials Processing Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    C. R. Wronski, R. M. Dawson, M. Gunes, Y. M. Li & R. W. Collins

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  1. C. R. Wronski
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  2. R. M. Dawson
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  3. M. Gunes
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  4. Y. M. Li
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  5. R. W. Collins
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Wronski, C.R., Dawson, R.M., Gunes, M. et al. Photocarrier Transport and Recombination in Amorphous Silicon. MRS Online Proceedings Library 297, 443–454 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-297-443

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