Enhancement of light-induced degradation under reverse bias in hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon solar cells

The nature of light- and current-induced metastabilities under electrical bias in hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) solar cells has been found to be different from those in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H)-based solar cells. First, a forward-bias current injection in the dark does not cause any degradation in nc-Si:H cell performance. The phenomenon is explained by the percolation transport through crystalline paths, where the excess carrier recombination does not cause degradation. Second, a reverse bias does not reduce, but enhances the light-induced degradation in the nc-Si:H cell performance. The enhancement increases with the magnitude of the applied reverse bias. By measuring the quantum efficiency losses and color (blue, wavelength=390nm and red, wavelength=670nm) fill factors, we suggest that the reverse-bias-enhanced defect generation mostly takes place in the grain-boundary regions. Light-soaking experiments using light with different spectra show that a reverse bias under white light causes more enhancement in the degradation than under blue light (wavelength shorter than 650nm). No degradation occurs under red light (wavelength longer than 665nm) in either open-circuit or reverse-bias condition. A “back-to-back” diode model is proposed to explain these phenomena in terms of the heterogeneity of the material structure.