Optical Characterisation of Passivated Contacts for Silicon Solar Cells

Passivated contacts on silicon solar cells provide electrical contact interfaces with low surface recombination (J0), but at a higher contact resistance (RS) to typical diffused Si-metal contacts. The higher contact resistance necessitates larger contact areas, thus increasing the significance of its optical characteristics to the overall device performance. Although obvious that the trio of RS, J0 and optical characteristics should be evaluated in tandem, the optical characteristics are often under evaluated, and it is therefore the object of this project to fill this knowledge gap using the collective knowledge between ANU, UCF and PVLighthouse.