TY - JOUR
T1 - 23% efficient p-type crystalline silicon solar cells with hole-selective passivating contacts based on physical vapor deposition of doped silicon films
AU - Yan, Di
AU - Cuevas, Andres
AU - Phang, Sieu Pheng
AU - Wan, Yimao
AU - Macdonald, Daniel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Author(s).
PY - 2018/8/6
Y1 - 2018/8/6
N2 - Of all the materials available to create carrier-selective passivating contacts for silicon solar cells, those based on thin films of doped silicon have permitted to achieve the highest levels of performance. The commonly used chemical vapour deposition methods use pyrophoric or toxic gases like silane, phosphine and diborane. In this letter, we propose a safer and simpler approach based on physical vapour deposition (PVD) of both the silicon and the dopant. An in-situ doped polycrystalline silicon film is formed, upon annealing, onto an ultrathin SiOx interlayer, thus providing selective conduction and surface passivation simultaneously. These properties are demonstrated here for the case of hole-selective passivating contacts, which present recombination current densities lower than 20 fA/cm2 and contact resistivities below 50 mΩ cm2. To further demonstrate the PVD approach, these contacts have been implemented in complete p-type silicon solar cells, together with a front phosphorus diffusion, achieving an open-circuit voltage of 701 mV and a conversion efficiency of 23.0%. These results show that PVD by sputtering is an attractive and reliable technology for fabricating high performance silicon solar cells.
AB - Of all the materials available to create carrier-selective passivating contacts for silicon solar cells, those based on thin films of doped silicon have permitted to achieve the highest levels of performance. The commonly used chemical vapour deposition methods use pyrophoric or toxic gases like silane, phosphine and diborane. In this letter, we propose a safer and simpler approach based on physical vapour deposition (PVD) of both the silicon and the dopant. An in-situ doped polycrystalline silicon film is formed, upon annealing, onto an ultrathin SiOx interlayer, thus providing selective conduction and surface passivation simultaneously. These properties are demonstrated here for the case of hole-selective passivating contacts, which present recombination current densities lower than 20 fA/cm2 and contact resistivities below 50 mΩ cm2. To further demonstrate the PVD approach, these contacts have been implemented in complete p-type silicon solar cells, together with a front phosphorus diffusion, achieving an open-circuit voltage of 701 mV and a conversion efficiency of 23.0%. These results show that PVD by sputtering is an attractive and reliable technology for fabricating high performance silicon solar cells.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051567340&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1063/1.5037610
DO - 10.1063/1.5037610
M3 - Article
SN - 0003-6951
VL - 113
JO - Applied Physics Letters
JF - Applied Physics Letters
IS - 6
M1 - 061603
ER -