Carrier drift-mobilities and solar cell models for amorphous and nanocrystalline silicon

Hole drift mobilities in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) are in the range of 10^-3 to 1 cm²/Vs at room-temperature. These low drift mobilities establish corresponding hole mobility limits to the power generation and useful thicknesses of the solar cells. The properties of as-deposited a-Si:H nip solar cells are quite close to their hole mobility limit, but the corresponding limit has not been examined for nc-Si:H solar cells. We explore the predictions for nc-Si:H solar cells based on parameters and values estimated from hole drift-mobility and related measurements. The indicate that the hole mobility limit for nc-Si:H cells corresponds to an optimum intrinsic-layer thickness of 2-3 μm, whereas the best nc-Si:H solar cells (10% conversion efficiency) have thicknesses around 2 μm.