Carrier Injection and Annealing‐Enhanced Electrical Performance in Tunnel Oxide‐Passivated Contact Silicon Solar Cells

Hu, Zechen; Song, Lihui; Lin, Dongyang; He, Qiyuan; Zhang, Xiujuan; Cai, Yongmei; Fang, Lingxin; He, Sheng; Hsu, WeiChih; Yu, Xuegong; Yang, Deren

doi:10.1002/pssa.202100614

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The light soaking that is being widely used in SHJ solar cells can improve the surface passivation and reduce J 0c by reducing the density of interface states acting as the recombination center 205,206 . The current injection and annealing (CIA) and reverse bias annealing can effectively passivate the defects and reduce ρ c of c ‐Si solar cells by promoting the transport of interstitial hydrogen into the c ‐Si wafers 231 . The hydrogen passivation that has been achieved by different strategies in PERC, TOPCon, and SHJ technologies is also worth trying in dopant‐free passivating contacts, such as FGA treatment and so forth.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…205,206 The current injection and annealing (CIA) and reverse bias annealing can effectively passivate the defects and reduce ρ c of c-Si solar cells by promoting the transport of interstitial hydrogen into the c-Si wafers. 231 The hydrogen passivation that has been achieved by different strategies in PERC, TOPCon, and SHJ technologies is also worth trying in dopant-free passivating contacts, such as FGA treatment and so forth.…”

Section: 175mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dopant‐free passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: Progress and prospects

Wang

Zhang

et al. 2022

EcoMat

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The evolution of the contact scheme has driven the technology revolution of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. The state-of-the-art high-efficiency c-Si solar cells such as silicon heterojunction (SHJ) and tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cells are featured with passivating contacts based on doped Si thin films, which induce parasitic optical absorption loss and require capitalintensive deposition processes involving flammable and toxic gasses. A promising solution to tackle this problem is to employ dopant-free passivating contact, involving the use of transparent and cost-effective wide band gap materials. In this review, we first introduce the dopant-free passivating contact, from carrier transport mechanisms, material classification to evaluation methods. Then we focus on the advances in different strategies to improve cell performance, including material property optimization, structural and interfacial engineering, as well as various post-treatments. At the end, the challenge and perspective of dopant-free passivating contact c-Si solar cells are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: 175mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dopant‐free passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: Progress and prospects

Wang

Zhang

et al. 2022

EcoMat

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“…Besides, by measuring the change of J 0 during the carrier-induced hydrogenation treatment, they proposed that hydrogen is of significance in the enhanced Si/SiO x interface defects passivation. More recently, Hu et al [128] also reported the improved conversion efficiency of TOPCon solar cells by using current injection and annealing (CIA) treatment, as shown in figure 27, which could also be related to the enhanced hydrogenation of interface defects. For details, the change in the electrical properties of Si/SiO 2 interface after hydrogenation has been discussed in [129].…”

Section: Huge Benefits Of Hydrogenation On Next-generation Silicon So...mentioning

confidence: 98%

Progress of hydrogenation engineering in crystalline silicon solar cells: a review

Song¹,

Hu²,

Lin³

et al. 2022

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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Crystalline silicon solar cells are always moving towards “high efficiency and low cost”, which requires continuously improving the quality of crystalline silicon materials. Nevertheless, crystalline silicon materials typically contain various kinds of impurities and defects, which act as carrier recombination centers. Therefore these impurities and defects must be well controlled during the solar cell fabrication processes to improve the cell efficiency. Hydrogenation of crystalline silicon is one important method to deactivate these impurities and defects, which is so-called “hydrogenation engineering” in this paper. Hydrogen is widely reported to be able to passivate diverse defects like crystallographic defects, metallic impurities, boron-oxygen related defects and etc, but the effectiveness of hydrogen passivation depends strongly on the processing conditions. Moreover, in this decade, advanced hydrogenation technique has been developed and widely applied in the photovoltaic industry to significantly improve the performance of silicon solar cells. As the research on hydrogenation study has made a significant progress, it is the right time to write a review paper on introducing the state-of-the-art hydrogenation study and its applications in photovoltaic industry. The paper first introduces the fundamental properties of hydrogen in crystalline silicon and then discusses the applications of hydrogen on deactivating/inducing typical defects (e.g. dislocations, grain boundaries, various metallic impurities, boron-oxygen related defects and LeTID) in p- and n-type crystalline silicon, respectively. At last, the benefits of hydrogenation engineering on the next-generation silicon solar cells (e.g. TOPCon and HJT solar cells) are discussed. Overall, it was found that hydrogen can deactivate most of typical defects (sometimes induce defect) in n- and p-type crystalline silicon, leading to a significant efficiency enhancement in PERC, TOPCon and HJT solar cells. In conclusion, the paper aims to assist young researchers to better understand hydrogenation research and shed light on the future development of hydrogenation study.

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Enhanced Passivation Effect of Tunnel Oxide Prepared by Ozone‐Gas Oxidation (OGO) for n‐Type Polysilicon Passivated Contact (TOPCon) Solar Cells

Yang,

Ou,

et al. 2024

Energy & Environ Materials

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Nowadays, a stack of heavily doped polysilicon (poly‐Si) and tunnel oxide (SiOx) is widely employed to improve the passivation performance in n‐type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) silicon solar cells. In this case, it is critical to develop an in‐line advanced fabrication process capable of producing high‐quality tunnel SiOx. Herein, an in‐line ozone‐gas oxidation (OGO) process to prepare the tunnel SiOx is proposed to be applied in n‐type TOPCon solar cell fabrication, which has obtained better performance compared with previously reported in‐line plasma‐assisted N2O oxidation (PANO) process. In order to explore the underlying mechanism, the electrical properties of the OGO and PANO tunnel SiOx are analyzed by deep‐level transient spectroscopy technology. Notably, continuous interface states in the band gap are detected for OGO tunnel SiOx, with the interface state densities (Dit) of 1.2 × 1012–3.6 × 1012 cm−2 eV−1 distributed in Ev + (0.15–0.40) eV, which is significantly lower than PANO tunnel SiOx. Furthermore, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicate that the percentage of SiO2 (Si4+) in OGO tunnel SiOx is higher than which in PANO tunnel SiOx. Therefore, we ascribe the lower Dit to the good inhibitory effects on the formation of low‐valent silicon oxides during the OGO process. In a nutshell, OGO tunnel SiOx has a great potential to be applied in n‐type TOPCon silicon solar cell, which may be available for global photovoltaics industry.

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Carrier Injection and Annealing‐Enhanced Electrical Performance in Tunnel Oxide‐Passivated Contact Silicon Solar Cells

Cited by 4 publications

References 22 publications

Dopant‐free passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: Progress and prospects

Dopant‐free passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: Progress and prospects

Progress of hydrogenation engineering in crystalline silicon solar cells: a review

Enhanced Passivation Effect of Tunnel Oxide Prepared by Ozone‐Gas Oxidation (OGO) for n‐Type Polysilicon Passivated Contact (TOPCon) Solar Cells

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