Isolating p- and n-Doped Fingers With Intrinsic Poly-Si in Passivated Interdigitated Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells
Abstract
Polycrystalline silicon on silicon oxide (poly-Si/SiOx) passivating contacts enable ultra high efficiency interdigitated back contact silicon solar cells. To prevent shunt between n- and p-type doped fingers, an insulating region is required between them. We evaluate the use of intrinsic poly Si for this isolation region. Interdigitated fingers were formed by plasma deposition of doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon through mechanically aligned shadow masks, on top of a full-area intrinsic amorphous silicon layer. High temperature annealing then crystallized the a-Si:H to poly Si and drove in the dopants. Two mechanisms were identified which cause contamination of the intrinsic poly Si gap during processing. During deposition of doped fingers, we show using secondary ion mass spectrometry and conductivity measurements that the intrinsic gap becomes contaminated by doped a-Si:H tails several nanometers thick to concentrations of ~1020 cm-3. Another source of contamination occurs during high-temperature annealing, where dopants desorb from doped regions and readsorb onto intrinsic a Si:H. Both pathways reduce the resistivity of the intrinsic gap from ~105 Ω·cm to ~10-1 Ω·cm. We show that plasma etching of the a-Si:H surface before crystallizing with a capping layer can eliminate the contamination of the intrinsic poly-Si, maintaining a resistivity of ~105 Ω·cm. Lastly,more »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[2];
[2];
[2];
- Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
- Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1897213
- Grant/Contract Number:
- EE0007553
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 10; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381
- Publisher:
- IEEE
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; Interdigitated-back-contact; passivating contacts; silicon solar cells
Citation Formats
Hartenstein, Matthew B., Nemeth, William, LaSalvia, Vincenzo, Harvey, Steve, Guthrey, Harvey, Theingi, San, Page, Matthew, Young, David L., Stradins, Paul, and Agarwal, Sumit. Isolating p- and n-Doped Fingers With Intrinsic Poly-Si in Passivated Interdigitated Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1109/jphotov.2020.3021668.
Hartenstein, Matthew B., Nemeth, William, LaSalvia, Vincenzo, Harvey, Steve, Guthrey, Harvey, Theingi, San, Page, Matthew, Young, David L., Stradins, Paul, & Agarwal, Sumit. Isolating p- and n-Doped Fingers With Intrinsic Poly-Si in Passivated Interdigitated Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells. United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/jphotov.2020.3021668
Hartenstein, Matthew B., Nemeth, William, LaSalvia, Vincenzo, Harvey, Steve, Guthrey, Harvey, Theingi, San, Page, Matthew, Young, David L., Stradins, Paul, and Agarwal, Sumit. Thu .
"Isolating p- and n-Doped Fingers With Intrinsic Poly-Si in Passivated Interdigitated Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells". United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/jphotov.2020.3021668. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1897213.
@article{osti_1897213,
title = {Isolating p- and n-Doped Fingers With Intrinsic Poly-Si in Passivated Interdigitated Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells},
author = {Hartenstein, Matthew B. and Nemeth, William and LaSalvia, Vincenzo and Harvey, Steve and Guthrey, Harvey and Theingi, San and Page, Matthew and Young, David L. and Stradins, Paul and Agarwal, Sumit},
abstractNote = {Polycrystalline silicon on silicon oxide (poly-Si/SiOx) passivating contacts enable ultra high efficiency interdigitated back contact silicon solar cells. To prevent shunt between n- and p-type doped fingers, an insulating region is required between them. We evaluate the use of intrinsic poly Si for this isolation region. Interdigitated fingers were formed by plasma deposition of doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon through mechanically aligned shadow masks, on top of a full-area intrinsic amorphous silicon layer. High temperature annealing then crystallized the a-Si:H to poly Si and drove in the dopants. Two mechanisms were identified which cause contamination of the intrinsic poly Si gap during processing. During deposition of doped fingers, we show using secondary ion mass spectrometry and conductivity measurements that the intrinsic gap becomes contaminated by doped a-Si:H tails several nanometers thick to concentrations of ~1020 cm-3. Another source of contamination occurs during high-temperature annealing, where dopants desorb from doped regions and readsorb onto intrinsic a Si:H. Both pathways reduce the resistivity of the intrinsic gap from ~105 Ω·cm to ~10-1 Ω·cm. We show that plasma etching of the a-Si:H surface before crystallizing with a capping layer can eliminate the contamination of the intrinsic poly-Si, maintaining a resistivity of ~105 Ω·cm. Lastly, this demonstrates masked plasma deposition as a dopant patterning method for Si solar cells.},
doi = {10.1109/jphotov.2020.3021668},
journal = {IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics},
number = 6,
volume = 10,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Sep 17 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Thu Sep 17 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
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