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We investigate the passivation quality of hole‐collecting junctions consisting of thermally or wet‐chemically grown interfacial oxides, sandwiched between a monocrystalline‐Si substrate and a p‐type polycrystalline‐silicon (Si) layer. The three different approaches for polycrystalline‐Si preparation are compared: the plasma‐enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of in situ p+‐type boron‐doped amorphous Si layers, the low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) of in situ p+‐type B‐doped polycrystalline Si layers, and the LPCVD of intrinsic amorphous Si, subsequently ion‐implanted with boron. We observe the lowest J0e values of 3.8 fA cm−2 on thermally grown interfacial oxide on planar surfaces for the case of intrinsic amorphous Si deposited by LPCVD and subsequently implanted with boron. Also, we obtain a similar high passivation of p+‐type poly‐Si junctions on wet‐chemically grown oxides as well as for all the investigated polycrystalline‐Si deposition approaches. Conversely, on alkaline‐textured surfaces, J0e is at least 4 times higher compared to planar surfaces. This finding holds for all the junction preparation methods investigated. We show that the higher J0e on textured surfaces can be attributed to a poorer passivation of the p+ poly/c‐Si stacks on (111) when compared to (100) surfaces.

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In the pursuit of ever higher conversion efficiencies for silicon photovoltaic cells, polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) layers on thin silicon oxide films were shown to form excellent carrier-selective junctions on crystalline silicon substrates. Investigating the pinhole formation that is induced in the thermal processing of the poly-Si on oxide (POLO) junctions is essential for optimizing their electronic performance. We observe the pinholes in the oxide layer by selective etching of the underlying crystalline silicon. The originally nm-sized pinholes are thus readily detected using simple optical and scanning electron microscopy. The resulting pinhole densities are in the range of 6.6 × 106 cm−2 to 1.6 × 108 cm−2 for POLO junctions with selectivities close to S10 = 16, i.e., saturation current density J0c below 10 fA/cm2 and contact resistivity ρc below 10 mΩcm2. The measured pinhole densities agree with values deduced by a pinhole-mediated current transport model. Thus, we conclude pinhole-mediated current transport to be the dominating transport mechanism in the POLO junctions investigated here.