Manipulating hybrid structures of polymer/a-Si for thin film solar cells

A series of uniform polymer/amorphous silicon hybrid structures have been fabricated by means of solution-casting for polymer and radio frequency excited plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition for amorphous silicon (a-Si:H). Poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) functioned as a photoactive donor, while the silicon layer acted as an acceptor. It is found that matching the hole mobility of the polymer to the electron mobility of amorphous silicon is critical to improve the photovoltaic performance from hybrid cells. A three-layer p-i-n structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS(200 nm)/i-Si(450 nm)/n-Si(200 nm)/Al with a power conversion efficiency of 4.78% under a standard test condition was achieved.