Front surface engineering of high efficiency Si solar cells and Ge TPV cells

Conference · Wed Dec 31 00:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:304389

Faur, M; Faur, M ^[1]; Bailey, S G ^[2]

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1. SPECMAT, Inc., North Olmsted, OH (United States)
2. NASA LeRC, Cleveland, OH (United States); and others

The authors demonstrate the effectiveness of using wet chemical techniques for Si and Ge planar surfaces to form nanoporous layers, and grow stable passivating oxide layers on planar and porous surfaces, after the front grid metallization step. Results show that this passivated chemical oxide layer: (i) can serve as an effective window/first layer antireflective coating, (ii) is chemically, thermally and UV stable, (iii) can simplify the structure of Si, Ge and III-V based space solar cells, thereby reducing cost, and (iv) has the potential of improving the beginning of life and especially the end of life efficiency of Si and III-V based space solar cells.

• OSTI ID: 304389
• Report Number(s): CONF-970953-; TRN: IM9905%%81
• Resource Relation: Conference: 26. IEEE photovoltaic specialists conference, Anaheim, CA (United States), 29 Sep - 3 Oct 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of Conference record of the twenty sixth IEEE photovoltaic specialists conference -- 1997; PB: 1477 p.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
THERMOPHOTOVOLTAIC CONVERTERS
GERMANIUM
PASSIVATION
SPACECRAFT POWER SUPPLIES
ANTIREFLECTION COATINGS
QUANTUM EFFICIENCY
SILICON OXIDES