Abstract

Rapid thermal processing (RTP) is studied to improve the bulk lifetime and efficiency of EFG Si solar cells. The RTP firing of PECVD SiN on the front and screen-printed Al on the back at 750/spl deg/C with a fast cooling rate is found to increase the bulk lifetime of EFG Si from 1-3 /spl mu/s to /spl sim/50 /spl mu/s due to enhanced SiN-induced hydrogen passivation of defects. This increase is believed to be enhanced due to a synergistic interaction between atomic hydrogen and vacancies. For screen-printed EFG Si solar cells, RTP firing is found to be superior to a conveyor belt furnace firing, resulting in 0.4% higher average absolute cell efficiency. Rapid firing improves back surface field, contacts, and retention of hydrogen at defects. An optimized RTP firing process produces high-efficiency EFG Si solar cells with single layer SiN antireflection coating: 15% efficiency with screen-printed contacts and 15.8% efficiency with photolithography contacts.

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