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Published June 2010 | Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

Mg doping and alloying in Zn_3P_2 heterojunction solar cells

Abstract

Zinc phosphide (Zn_3P_2) is a promising and earth-abundant alternative to traditional materials (e.g. CdTe, CIGS, a-Si) for thin film photovoltaics. We report the fabrication of Mg/Zn_3P_2 Schottky diodes with V_(oc) values reaching 550 mV, J_(sc) values up to 21.8 mA/cm^2, and photovoltaic efficiency reaching 4.5%. Previous authors have suggested that Mg impurities behave as n-type dopants in Zn_3P_2, but combined Hall effect measurements and Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) show that 10^(17) to 10^(19) cm^(-3) Mg impurities compensate p-type doping to form highly resistive Zn_3P_2. Further device work with modified ITO/Mg/Zn_3P_2 heterojunctions suggests that the ITO capping layer improves a passivation reaction between Mg and Zn_3P_2 to yield high voltages > 500 mV without degradation in the blue response of the solar cell. These results indicate that at least 8-10% efficiency cell is realizable by the optimization of Mg treatment in Zn_3P_2 solar cells.

Additional Information

© 2010 IEEE. Issue Date: 20-25 June 2010. Date of Current Version: 01 November 2010. We acknowledge Yunbin Guan and the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech for assistance collecting SIMS data. This work was supported by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy under grant DE-FG36-08G018006, the Caltech Center for Sustainable Energy Research (CCSER), as well as a partnership with the Dow Chemical Company. One of us (GMK) acknowledges support under an NDSEG graduate fellowship.

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August 19, 2023
Modified:
January 13, 2024