Carrier-selective contacts for Si solar cells
- 5 May 2014
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Applied Physics Letters
- Vol. 104 (18)
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4875904
Abstract
Carrier-selective contacts (i.e., minority carrier mirrors) are one of the last remaining obstacles to approaching the theoretical efficiency limit of silicon solar cells. In the 1980s, it was already demonstrated that n-type polysilicon and semi-insulating polycrystalline silicon emitters form carrier-selective emitters which enabled open-circuit voltages (Voc) of up to 720 mV. Albeit promising, to date a polysilicon emitter solar cell having a high fill factor (FF) has not been demonstrated yet. In this work, we report a polysilicon emitter related solar cell achieving both a high Voc = 694 mV and FF = 81%. The passivation mechanism of these so-called tunnel oxide passivated contacts will be outlined and the impact of TCO (transparent conductive oxide) deposition on the injection-dependent lifetime characteristic of the emitter as well as its implications on FF will be discussed. Finally, possible transport paths across the tunnel oxide barrier will be discussed and it will be shown that the passivating oxide layer does not lead to a relevant resistive loss and thus does not limit the solar cell's carrier transport. Contrary to amorphous silicon-based heterojunction solar cells, this structure also shows a good thermal stability and, thus, could be a very appealing option for next generation high-efficiency silicon solar cells.Keywords
This publication has 22 references indexed in Scilit:
- A review and comparison of different methods to determine the series resistance of solar cellsSolar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 2007
- Nitric acid oxidation of Si to form ultrathin silicon dioxide layers with a low leakage current densityJournal of Applied Physics, 2003
- Modeling CMOS tunneling currents through ultrathin gate oxide due to conduction- and valence-band electron and hole tunnelingIEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2001
- Bias temperature instability in scaled p/sup +/ polysilicon gate p-MOSFET'sIEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 1999
- Polysilicon emitters for bipolar transistors: a review and re-evaluation of theory and experimentIEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 1992
- Polysilicon emitter p-n-p transistorsIEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 1989
- N-type SIPOS and poly-silicon emittersSolid-State Electronics, 1987
- An explanation of the asymmetry in electron and hole tunnel currents through ultra-thin SiO2 filmsSolid-State Electronics, 1986
- A 720 mV open circuit voltage SiOx:c-Si:SiOx double heterostructure solar cellApplied Physics Letters, 1985
- Determination of doping factor, mobility ratio and excess concentration using photovoltages at extreme band bendingsSolid-State Electronics, 1978