Ge composition dependence of properties of solar cells based on multicrystalline SiGe with microscopic compositional distribution

Abstract

We present device performance of solar cells based on multicrystalline SiGe (mc-SiGe) bulk crystal with microscopic compositional distribution grown by the casting method. The average Ge composition was systematically changed in the range between 0% and 10%. A small addition of Ge to multicrystalline Si (mc-Si) was found to be very effective to increase the short-circuit current density without affecting the open-circuit voltage. As a consequence, the overall efficiency of a solar cell based on mc-SiGe was improved compared with that based on mc-Si. This result demonstrates that mc-SiGe is a promising candidate to replace mc-Si since it could achieve higher conversion efficiency without drastic increase of the production cost.