Passivating Contacts for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells: From Concepts and Materials to Prospects

Jimmy Melskens*, Bas W.H. Van De Loo, Bart Macco, Lachlan E. Black, Sjoerd Smit, W. M.M. Kessels

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

319 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

To further increase the conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells, it is vital to reduce the recombination losses associated with the contacts. Therefore, a contact structure that simultaneously passivates the c-Si surface while selectively extracting only one type of charge carrier (i.e., either electrons or holes) is desired. Realizing such passivating contacts in c-Si solar cells has become an important research objective, and an overview and classification of work to date on this topic is presented here. Using this overview, we discuss the design guidelines for passivating contacts and outline their prospects.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)373-388
Number of pages16
JournalIEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume8
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2018
Externally publishedYes

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