Back-contacted Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells Research Articles

Lithography-free and dopant-free back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells with solution-processed TiO2 as the efficient electron selective layer

Lithography-free interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction (IBC-SHJ) solar cells with dopant-free metal oxides (TiO2 and MoOx) as the carriers selective transport layers were investigated. Spin-coating and hot-wire reactive-sublimation deposition together with low cost mask technology were used to fabricate the solar cells. Insertion of a SiOx layer with the thickness of about 2.4 nm between the intrinsic amorphous Si (a-Si:H(i)) passivation layer and the spin-coated TiO2 layer greatly improves the solar cell performance due to the enhanced field-effect passivation of the a-Si:H(i)/SiOx/TiO2 layer stack. Efficiency up to 20.24% was achieved on the lithography-free and dopant-free IBC-SHJ devices with a-Si:H(i)/SiOx/TiO2 layer stack as the electron selective transport layer, a-Si:H(i)/MoOx as the hole selective transport layer, and WOx as the antireflection layer. The novel IBC-SHJ solar cells show significant advantages in simplification of the technology and process compared with the IBC-SHJ devices whose back surface pattering and carrier selective layers relied on photolithography and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD).

Damage-free Ablation Process for Back-contacted Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Damage-free Ablation Process for Back-contacted Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Potential of interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells for liquid phase crystallized silicon on glass with efficiency above 14%

Liquid phase crystallization of silicon (LPC-Si) on glass is a promising method to produce high quality multi-crystalline Si films with macroscopic grains. In this study, we report on recent improvements of our interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction contact system (IBC-SHJ), which enabled open circuit voltages as high as 661mV and efficiencies up to 14.2% using a 13µm thin n-type LPC-Si absorbers on glass. The influence of the BSF width on the cell performance is investigated both experimentally and numerically. We combine 1D optical simulations using GenPro4 and 2D electrical simulations using Sentaurus™ TCAD to determine the optical and electrical loss mechanisms in order to estimate the potential of our current LPC-Si absorbers. The simulations reveal an effective minority carrier diffusion length of 26µm and further demonstrate that a doping concentration of 4 × 1016cm−3 and a back surface field width of 60µm are optimum values to further increase cell efficiencies.

Aluminium metallisation for interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells

Back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells with an efficiency of 22% were manufactured, featuring a simple aluminium metallisation directly on the doped amorphous silicon films. Both the open-circuit voltage and the fill factor heavily depend on the parameters of the annealing step after aluminium layer deposition. Using numerical device simulations and in accordance with the literature, we demonstrate that the changes in solar cell parameters with annealing can be explained by the formation of an aluminium silicide layer at temperatures as low as 150 °C, improving the contact resistance and thus enhancing the fill factor. Further annealing at higher temperatures initialises the crystallisation of the amorphous silicon layers, yielding even lower contact resistances, but also introduces more defects, diminishing the open-circuit voltage.

Fabrication of interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells on a 53-µm-thick crystalline silicon substrate by using the optimized inkjet printing method for etching mask formation

Inkjet-printing-based fabrication process of the interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells has the potential to reduce the manufacturing costs because of its low machine and material costs and its applicability to thinner fragile silicon substrates than 100 µm. In this study, ink and printing parameters were investigated to obtain the desirable fine patterns and the resultant accuracy of the linewidths was less than ±0.05 mm on a flat surface. The completed cells using inkjet-printing showed almost the same performance of that fabricated by photolithography. In addition, flexible and free-standing cell on a 53-µm-thick Si substrate has been successfully fabricated.

Back-Contacted Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells: Optical-Loss Analysis and Mitigation

We analyze the optical losses that occur in interdigitated back-contacted amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells. We show that in our devices, the main loss mechanisms are similar to those of two-side contacted heterojunction solar cells. These include reflection and escape-light losses, as well as parasitic absorption in the front passivation layers and rear contact stacks. We then provide practical guidelines to mitigate such reflection and parasitic absorption losses at the front side of our solar cells, aiming at increasing the short-circuit current density in actual devices. Applying these rules, we processed a back-contacted silicon heterojunction solar cell featuring a short-circuit current density of 40.9 mA/cm2 and a conversion efficiency of 22.0%. Finally, we show that further progress will require addressing the optical losses occurring at the rear electrodes of the back-contacted devices.

Properties of Liquid Phase Crystallized Interdigitated Back-contact Solar Cells on Glass

We fabricated interdigitated back-contact silicon hetero-junction solar cells based on thin-film absorbers on glass. The Si absorbers were directly deposited on the glass and crystallized using liquid phase crystallization. To compare whether our contact system is applicable to a wide range of initial absorber conditions two different types of precursors were prepared with absorber thicknesses between 2.5-9μm. Furthermore, glass superstrates, doping densities and interlayer stacks were varied. With a KOH random pyramid light trapping texture at the back more than 30mA/cm2 were achieved on an electron beam evaporated precursor material and 655mV on a PECVD precursor material.

Simulation of interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction solar cells with quantum transport model

A simulation of interdigitated back-contact silicon heterojunction (IBC-SHJ) solar cells was performed using a quantum transport model to consider the quantum effect at the crystalline/amorphous (c/a) heterojunction interface. It was found that the impact of the quantum effect on the open-circuit voltage is comparable to that of the interface defect density at the c/a interface, indicating the importance of implementation of the quantum model. The optimal back-contact design was also discussed from the viewpoint of mass production, in which the design rule is relaxed. The degradation of the conversion efficiency by widening the gap between the p- and n-aSi:H layers can be compensated by improving passivation quality at the c/a interface.

Back-Contacted Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells With Efficiency >21%

We report on the fabrication of back-contacted silicon heterojunction solar cells with conversion efficiencies above 21%. Our process technology relies solely on simple and size-scalable patterning methods, with no high-temperature steps. Using in situ shadow masks, doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon layers are patterned into two interdigitated combs. Transparent conductive oxide and metal layers, forming the back electrodes, are patterned by hot melt inkjet printing. With this process, we obtain high short-circuit current densities close to 40 mA/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> and open-circuit voltages exceeding 720 mV, leading to a conversion efficiency of 21.5%. However, moderate fill factor values limit our current device efficiencies. Unhindered carrier transport through both heterocontact layer stacks, as well as higher passivation quality over the minority carrier-injection range relevant for solar cell operation, are identified as key factors for improved fill factor values and device performance.

Interdigitated Back-Contacted Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells With Improved Fill Factor and Efficiency

We compare recently reported results of efficient back-contacted amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells with fill factors up to 78.8% with calculated j-V characteristics that are derived from an area-weighted summation of recombination currents taken from lifetime measurements. We compare solar cell structures with and without an intrinsic buffer layer beneath the p-type amorphous silicon emitter. We find that the inclusion of the buffer layer reduces the fill-factor potential by changing the ideality of the recombination current. However, analyzing the series resistance by illumination-dependent j-V-measurements, we find that the major loss mechanism of the fill factor is the limitation of the charge-carrier transport.