skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Low-cost plasma immersion ion implantation doping for Interdigitated back passivated contact (IBPC) solar cells

Journal Article · · Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Here, we present progress to develop low-cost interdigitated back contact solar cells with pc-Si/SiO2/c-Si passivated contacts formed by plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII). PIII is a lower-cost implantation technique than traditional beam line implantation due to its simpler design, lower operating costs, and ability to run high doses (1E14-1E18 cm-2) at low ion energies (20 eV-10 keV). These benefits make PIII ideal for high throughput production of patterned passivated contacts, where high-dose, low-energy implantations are made into thin (20-200 nm) a-Si layers instead of into the wafer itself. For this work symmetric passivated contact test structures (~100 nm thick) grown on n-Cz wafers with pH3 PIII doping gave implied open circuit voltage (iVoc) values of 730 mV with Jo values of 2 fA/cm2. Samples doped with B2H6 gave iVoc values of 690 mV and Jo values of 24 fA/cm2, outperforming BF3 doping, which gave iVoc values in the 660-680 mV range. Samples were further characterized by SIMS, photoluminescence, TEM, EELS, and post-metallization TLM to reveal micro- and macro-scopic structural, chemical and electrical information.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (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:
1328644
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1396784
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA-5J00-66528
Journal Information:
Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 158, Issue P1; ISSN 0927-0248
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 30 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (19)

Interdigitated Back Passivated Contact (IBPC) Solar Cells Formed by Ion Implantation journal January 2016
Tunnel oxide passivated contacts formed by ion implantation for applications in silicon solar cells journal November 2015
Ion Implantation for All-alumina IBC Solar Cells with Floating Emitter journal January 2014
Ion Implantation for Poly-Si Passivated Back-Junction Back-Contacted Solar Cells journal March 2015
Design and application of ion-implanted polySi passivating contacts for interdigitated back contact c-Si solar cells journal January 2016
Recombination Behavior of Photolithography-free Back Junction Back Contact Solar Cells with Carrier-selective Polysilicon on Oxide Junctions for Both Polarities journal August 2016
Diffusion of Boron near Projected Ranges of B and BF 2 Ions Implanted in Silicon journal December 2008
Semiconductor applications of plasma immersion ion implantation journal March 2003
Polycrystalline silicon passivated tunneling contacts for high efficiency silicon solar cells journal March 2016
Ion implantation into amorphous Si layers to form carrier-selective contacts for Si solar cells: Ion implantation into amorphous Si layers to form carrier-selective contacts for Si solar cells journal August 2014
Fluorine in Si: Native-defect complexes and the suppression of impurity diffusion journal July 2005
Ion implantation of boric molecules for silicon solar cells journal November 2015
High quality ion implanted boron emitters in an interdigitated back contact solar cell with 20% efficiency journal January 2011
Building blocks for back-junction back-contacted cells and modules with ion-implanted poly-Si junctions
  • Peibst, Robby; Romer, Udo; Larionova, Yevgeniya
  • 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2014.6925049
conference June 2014
Oxygen precipitation in silicon: Experimental studies and theoretical investigations within the classical theory of nucleation journal June 1999
Effect of High Temperature Pre-Anneal on Oxygen Precipitates Nucleation Kinetics in Si journal July 1997
Utilization of Tabula Rasa to stabilize bulk lifetimes in n-Cz silicon for high-performance solar cell processing conference June 2016
Surface damage caused by electron-beam metallization of high open-circuit voltage solar cells journal July 1984
Passivated rear contacts for high-efficiency n-type Si solar cells providing high interface passivation quality and excellent transport characteristics journal January 2014

Cited By (4)

Theoretical study of dissociative recombination and vibrational excitation of the ${\mathrm{BF}}_{2}^{+}$ ion by an electron impact journal November 2018
The Effect of the Plasma-Nitriding Process on the Structure and Wear Properties of the Sintered Low Alloy Steel journal October 2018
Enhanced Photocurrent Generation in Proton‐Irradiated “Giant” CdSe/CdS Core/Shell Quantum Dots journal September 2019
Excellent Surface Passivation Quality on Crystalline Silicon Using Industrial-Scale Direct-Plasma TOPCon Deposition Technology journal April 2018

Similar Records

Plasma Immersion Ion Implantation for Interdigitated Back Passivated Contact (IBPC) Solar Cells
Conference · Mon Nov 21 00:00:00 EST 2016 · OSTI ID:1328644
+6 more
Fully screen-printed bifacial large area 22.6% N-type Si solar cell with lightly doped ion-implanted boron emitter and tunnel oxide passivated rear contact
Journal Article · Sat May 16 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells · OSTI ID:1328644
+4 more
Process–Structure–Properties Relationships of Passivating, Electron–Selective Contacts Formed by Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition of Phosphorus–Doped Polysilicon
Journal Article · Thu Jan 27 00:00:00 EST 2022 · Physica Status Solidi. Rapid Research Letters · OSTI ID:1328644
+9 more

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
plasma immersion ion implantation
passivated contacts
silicon
solar cells