Overcoming the Challenges of Hydrogenation in Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

The challenges of passivating defects in silicon solar cells using hydrogen atoms are discussed. Atomic hydrogen is naturally incorporated into conventional silicon solar cells through the deposition of hydrogen-containing dielectric layers and the metallisation firing process. The firing process can readily passivate certain structural defects such as grain boundaries. However, the standard hydrogenation processes are ineffective at passivating numerous defects in silicon solar cells. This difficulty can be attributed to the atomic hydrogen naturally occupying low-mobility and low-reactivity charge states, or the thermal dissociation of hydrogen–defect complexes. The concentration of the highly mobile and reactive neutral-charge state of atomic hydrogen can be enhanced using excess carriers generated by light. Additional low-temperature hydrogenation processes implemented after the conventional fast-firing hydrogenation process are shown to improve the passivation of difficult structural defects. For process-induced defects, careful attention must be paid to the process sequence to ensure that a hydrogenation process is included after the defects are introduced into the device. Defects such as oxygen precipitates that form during high-temperature diffusion and oxidation processes can be passivated during the subsequent dielectric deposition and high-temperature firing process. However, for laser-based processes performed after firing, an additional hydrogenation process should be included after the introduction of the defects. Carrier-induced defects are even more challenging to passivate, and advanced hydrogenation methods incorporating minority carrier injection must be used to induce defect formation first, and, second, provide charge state manipulation to enable passivation. Doing so can increase the performance of industrial p-type Czochralski solar cells by 1.1 % absolute when using a new commercially available laser-based advanced hydrogenation tool.