Advanced ms-annealing concepts for semiconducting oxides for PV applications.

The demand for high performance PV devices has led to vast advances in novel concepts for highly efficient PV products to be realized. Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) is one of the materials with a great potential towards PV applications and their indium tin oxide (ITO) is an industry viable option. The excellent set of properties demonstrated by ITO are stipled by its high cost and as a result given impetus to scientists to research for cheaper materials as an alternative. Consequently, Al- and Ga-doped ZnO (AZO and GZO) were identified as attractive candidates to replace the ITO-based PV components. However, to simultaneously ensure a higher conversion of solar energy to electricity and a significant reduction of the processing costs, further improvements of the AZO characteristics need to be achieved. Herein the authors propose application of advanced, millisecond annealing technologies e.g. flash lamp annealing (FLA) for the fabrication of the enhanced quality AZO for PV industry. As it will be shown, FLA offers effective recrystallization of the as-processed AZO films, activation of the Al dopants and creation of a defect-depleted AZO/c-Si interface. Superior opto-electrical response of the fabricated semiconductor heterostructures is achieved as a result. The application of ultra-short annealing times and selective heating option lead to an extraordinary time and energy conservation, opening up novel and low cost fabrication strategies for innovative PV products.