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Title: Carrier Selective, Passivated Contacts for High Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells based on Transparent Conducting Oxides

Journal Article · · Energy Procedia (Online)
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
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We describe the design, fabrication and results of passivated contacts to n-type silicon utilizing thin SiO2 and transparent conducting oxide layers. High temperature silicon dioxide is grown on both surfaces of an n-type wafer to a thickness <50 Å, followed by deposition of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) and a patterned metal contacting layer. As deposited, the thin-film stack has a very high J0,contact, and a non-ohmic, high contact resistance. However, after a forming gas anneal, the passivation quality and the contact resistivity improve significantly. The contacts are characterized by measuring the recombination parameter of the contact (J0,contact) and the specific contact resistivity (ρcontact) using a TLM pattern. The best ITO/SiO2 passivated contact in this study has J0,contact = 92.5 fA/cm2 and ρcontact = 11.5 mOhm-cm2. These values are placed in context with other passivating contacts using an analysis that determines the ultimate efficiency and the optimal area fraction for contacts for a given set of (J0,contact, ρcontact) values. The ITO/SiO2 contacts are found to have a higher J0,contact, but a similar ρcontact compared to the best reported passivated contacts.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1159778
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5J00-61658; MainId:23061; UUID:dca42163-34b1-e311-9b94-d89d67143430; MainAdminID:11537
Journal Information:
Energy Procedia (Online), Vol. 55; Conference: Energy Procedia; ISSN 1876-6102
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 21 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (5)

Silicon passivation and tunneling contact formation by atomic layer deposited Al 2 O 3 /ZnO stacks journal June 2013
Electron transport and band structure in phosphorus-doped polycrystalline silicon films journal February 2009
Asymmetry in the SiO2 tunneling barriers to electrons and holes journal January 1980
Surface recombination velocity of phosphorus-diffused silicon solar cell emitters passivated with plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited silicon nitride and thermal silicon oxide journal April 2001
A Fill Factor Loss Analysis Method for Silicon Wafer Solar Cells journal October 2013

Cited By (2)

Charge carrier-selective contacts for nanowire solar cells journal August 2018
Elucidating charge separation in particulate photocatalysts using nearly intrinsic semiconductors with small asymmetric band bending journal January 2019

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Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
silicon solar cells
passivated contacts