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Passivation of grain boundary electronic activity in polycrystalline silicon thin films by heat treatment and hydrogenation

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Abstract

The polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin films are widely used in photovoltaic applications. However, the main drawback is the electronic activity of the grain boundaries which affects the performance of solar cells based on this material. In order to reduce the impact of this phenomenon, which affects the photovoltaic conversion efficiency, heat treatments before doping and annealing under hydrogen were carried out on phosphorus-doped poly-Si thin films. The obtained results showed that the heat treatments before doping allow an improvement in the free carriers concentration of 15 to 55% for temperatures ranging from 1000 to 1150 °C. In addition, an increase in the carriers mobility and a reduction in the resistivity of the studied thin films were observed. On the other hand, the annealing under hydrogen allowed an improvement of 10 to 18% on the free carriers concentration, a reduction of the resistivity, and an increase of the carriers mobility. Therefore, it can be deduced that heat treatments followed by annealing under hydrogen allow the passivation of the grain boundaries and thus lead to an improvement of the electrical characteristics, and consequently, the efficiency of solar cells made from poly-Si thin films.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Semiconductors, Department of Physics, University Badji Mokhtar, Annaba, Algeria

    Alima Magramene, Souheyla Gagui, Bouzid Hadjoudja, Baghdadi Chouial & Allaoua Chibani

  2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, University of 20 Aout 55, Skikda, Algeria

    Alima Magramene & Hani Hadjoudja

  3. Higher School of Industrial Technology (ESTI), Annaba, Algeria

    Mohamed Moumene

  4. Department of Physics, Faculty of Material Sciences, University of Batna 1, Batna, Algeria

    Beddiaf Zaidi

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  1. Alima Magramene
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Magramene, A., Moumene, M., Hadjoudja, H. et al. Passivation of grain boundary electronic activity in polycrystalline silicon thin films by heat treatment and hydrogenation. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 128, 4331–4337 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-12172-9

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