Passivating boron silicate glasses for co-diffused high-efficiency n-type silicon solar cell application

Abstract

Doping layers commonly have but one function: supplying the dopants to form a doped region within a substrate. This work presents B doping layers/stacks, which at the same time supply dopant atoms, passivate the B-doped crystalline Si surface sufficiently well (j0E < 50 fA/cm2), and show optical properties suitable for anti-reflective coating. Furthermore, these boron silicate glasses can act as a barrier against parasitic P in-diffusion during a co-diffusion step. The boron emitters diffused from the inductively coupled plasma plasma-enhanced chemical vapor-deposited B containing SiOx layers are investigated and optimized concerning passivation quality and contact properties for high-efficiency n-type solar Si cell designs. It is shown that even 10 nm thin SiOx:B films already allow for suitable emitter sheet resistance for screen-printed contacts. Furthermore, SiOx:B layers presented here allow for iVOC values of 675 mV and contact resistivity of 1 mΩcm2 for commercial Ag instead of Ag/Al pastes on the diffused boron emitter passivated with the SiOx:B layer supporting the contact formation. All of these properties can be achieved within one single B doping layer/stack.