Base doping and recombination activity of impurities in crystalline silicon solar cells

Abstract

The optimisation of base doping for industrial crystalline silicon solar cells is examined with model calculations. Focus is on the relation between base doping and carrier recombination through the important impurities interstitial iron (Fe i ) and the metastable boron-oxygen (BO) complex. In p-type silicon, the optimum base resistivity is strongly dependent on defect concentration. In n-type silicon, recombination due to Fe i is much lower and nearly independent of resistivity. Fe i is likely representative for other transition metal impurities. In many real cells a balance between Fe i or similar defects, and BO will occur.

Efficiency Enhancement of Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells via Photon Management Using Graphene Quantum Dot as Downconverters

“…14 carrier lifetimes (up to the millisecond range), no light-induced degradation caused by boron-oxygen pair, and high impurity tolerance. [16][17][18][19][20][21] Despite the great success in developing high performance SHJ devices, a large number of photons are still wasted, leading to the significant power loss. It is reported that the total power loss is more than 20% of the current output power.…”

Analysis of the silicon solar cells efficiency. Type of doping and level optimization

“…At the same time, the SRH recombination can be determined by the energy levels which do not agree with the middle of the band gap and electrons σ n and holes σ p cross-sections differ essentially. The level of Fe is one of such levels [2,3]. According to [2], it is characterized by the values E c -E t = 0.774 eV (E c is the conduction band edge), σ n = 5·10 -14 cm 2 , σ p = 7·10 -17 cm 2 .…”

“…The level of Fe is one of such levels [2,3]. According to [2], it is characterized by the values E c -E t = 0.774 eV (E c is the conduction band edge), σ n = 5·10 -14 cm 2 , σ p = 7·10 -17 cm 2 . In this case, the SRH lifetime value τ SRH can significantly depend both on the SC base doping and on the excess electron-hole pairs' Semiconductor Physics, Quantum Electronics & Optoelectronics, 2016.…”

Parametric optimum design of a photon-enhanced thermionic solar cell

“…(5) indicates that illumination increases the conduction-band concentration n over the equilibrium value n eq without photoexcitation, whereas the thermal energy determines the rate at which electrons emit over the electron affinity χ [11]. It should be noted that the Auger recombination [18,22], surface recombination [23,24], and Shockley Read Hall recombination effects [18,25] have been ignored in Eq. (1).…”