P. Chaudhuri et al., PHOTOGENERATION AND RECOMBINATION OF CARRIERS IN HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS-SILICON GERMANIUM ALLOYS, Solar energy materials and solar cells, 30(3), 1993, pp. 233-243
The spectral dependence of carrier generation and recombination loss i
n a-SiGe:H samples having band gaps between 1.74 eV and 1.35 eV was st
udied in the Schottky barrier solar cell device structure. The active
a-SiGe:H layers were of identical thickness (1 mum). The effect of hyd
rogen dilution of the source gases (silane and germane) on the generat
ion and recombination characteristics was also studied. It has been ob
served that the net optical generation of carriers increases almost li
nearly with the lowering of the band gap but is independent of the loc
alised states. Net recombination loss, on the other hand, increases wi
th defect states but cannot be fully explained by taking into account
the neutral defect centers alone. Within the above mentioned band gap
range, it has been observed that the competing processes of generation
and recombination resulted in a maximum short circuit current for a-S
iGe:H samples of 1.44 eV band gap.