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Title: Origins of hydrogen that passivates bulk defects in silicon heterojunction solar cells

Abstract

Silicon heterojunction solar cell fabrication incorporates a significant amount of hydrogen into the silicon wafer bulk, and the amount of injected hydrogen is comparable to that introduced by silicon nitride films during a high-temperature firing step. In this work, the origins of the hydrogen injected during heterojunction cell processing have been identified. We demonstrate that the hydrogen plasma treatment that is routinely included to improve surface passivation considerably increases the hydrogen concentration in the wafers. We also show that the hydrogenated amorphous silicon i/p+ stack is more effective than the i/n+ stack for bulk hydrogen incorporation, and both are more effective than intrinsic films alone.

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ; ; ; ORCiD logo; ; ;
Publication Date:
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1579582
Grant/Contract Number:  
NSF Cooperative Agreement No. EEC-1041895
Resource Type:
Publisher's Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Applied Physics Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Volume: 115 Journal Issue: 25; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Sun, Chang, Weigand, William, Shi, Jianwei, Yu, Zhengshan, Basnet, Rabin, Phang, Sieu Pheng, Holman, Zachary C., and Macdonald, Daniel. Origins of hydrogen that passivates bulk defects in silicon heterojunction solar cells. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1063/1.5132368.
Sun, Chang, Weigand, William, Shi, Jianwei, Yu, Zhengshan, Basnet, Rabin, Phang, Sieu Pheng, Holman, Zachary C., & Macdonald, Daniel. Origins of hydrogen that passivates bulk defects in silicon heterojunction solar cells. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5132368
Sun, Chang, Weigand, William, Shi, Jianwei, Yu, Zhengshan, Basnet, Rabin, Phang, Sieu Pheng, Holman, Zachary C., and Macdonald, Daniel. Tue . "Origins of hydrogen that passivates bulk defects in silicon heterojunction solar cells". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5132368.
@article{osti_1579582,
title = {Origins of hydrogen that passivates bulk defects in silicon heterojunction solar cells},
author = {Sun, Chang and Weigand, William and Shi, Jianwei and Yu, Zhengshan and Basnet, Rabin and Phang, Sieu Pheng and Holman, Zachary C. and Macdonald, Daniel},
abstractNote = {Silicon heterojunction solar cell fabrication incorporates a significant amount of hydrogen into the silicon wafer bulk, and the amount of injected hydrogen is comparable to that introduced by silicon nitride films during a high-temperature firing step. In this work, the origins of the hydrogen injected during heterojunction cell processing have been identified. We demonstrate that the hydrogen plasma treatment that is routinely included to improve surface passivation considerably increases the hydrogen concentration in the wafers. We also show that the hydrogenated amorphous silicon i/p+ stack is more effective than the i/n+ stack for bulk hydrogen incorporation, and both are more effective than intrinsic films alone.},
doi = {10.1063/1.5132368},
journal = {Applied Physics Letters},
number = 25,
volume = 115,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Dec 17 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Tue Dec 17 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5132368

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 14 works
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