Effects of high-temperature treatment on the hydrogen distribution in silicon oxynitride/silicon nitride stacks for crystalline silicon surface passivation

Schwab, Christoph; Hofmann, M.; Heller, R.; Seiffe, J.; Rentsch, J.; Preu, R.

doi:10.1002/pssa.201329308

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Subsequent studies have explored this dielectric system in more detail. Laades et al and Shwab et al corroborated previous findings on the thermal stability of SiON films, and additionally showed that H passivation played a key role in the passivation properties upon high‐temperature firing. Zhou et al systematically studied the plasma deposition parameters, while Brinkmann et al investigated the films’ electrical, optical and structural properties.…”

Section: Materials and Methods For Silicon Surface Passivationsupporting

confidence: 74%

Dielectric surface passivation for silicon solar cells: A review

Bonilla

Hoex

Hamer

et al. 2017

Physica Status Solidi (a)

224

161

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Silicon wafer solar cells continue to be the leading photovoltaic technology, and in many places are now providing a substantial portion of electricity generation. Further adoption of this technology will require processing that minimises losses in device performance. A fundamental mechanism for efficiency loss is the recombination of photo-generated charge carriers at the unavoidable cell surfaces. Dielectric coatings have been shown to largely prevent these losses through a combination of different passivation mechanisms. This review aims to provide an overview of the dielectric passivation coatings developed in the past two decades using a standardised methodology to characterise the metrics of surface recombination across all techniques and materials. The efficacy of a large set of materials and methods has been evaluated using such metrics and a discussion on the current state and prospects for further surface passivation improvements is provided.

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Section: Materials and Methods For Silicon Surface Passivationsupporting

confidence: 74%

Dielectric surface passivation for silicon solar cells: A review

Bonilla

Hoex

Hamer

et al. 2017

Physica Status Solidi (a)

224

161

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“…To confirm the presence of hydrogen, we performed 15 N nuclear reaction analysis ( 15 N-NRA) on our films. [31,32] In short, the sample is bombarded with 15 N ions (E > 6.385…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Charge Carrier Lifetime in Metal Oxide Photoelectrodes through Mild Hydrogen Treatment

Jang

Friedrich

Müller

et al. 2017

Advanced Energy Materials

119

164

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Widespread application of solar water splitting for energy conversion is largely dependent on the progress in developing not only efficient, but also cheap and scalable photoelectrodes. Metal oxides, which can be deposited with scalable techniques and are relatively cheap, are particularly interesting, but high efficiency is still hindered by the poor carrier transport properties (i.e., carrier mobility and lifetime). In this paper, a mild hydrogen treatment is introduced to bismuth vanadate (BiVO4), which is one of the most promising metal oxide photoelectrodes, as a method to overcome the carrier transport limitations. Timeresolved microwave and terahertz conductivity measurements reveal more than two-fold enhancement of the carrier lifetime for the hydrogen-treated BiVO4, without significantly affecting the carrier mobility. This is in contrast to the case of tungsten-doped BiVO4, although hydrogen is also shown to be a donor type dopant in BiVO4. The enhancement in carrier lifetime is found to be caused by significant reduction of trap-assisted recombination, either via passivation of deep trap states or reduction of trap state density, which can be related to vanadium anti-site on bismuth or vanadium interstitials according to density functional theory calculations. Overall, these findings provide further insights on the interplay between defect modulation and carrier transport in metal oxide photoelectrodes, which will benefit the development of low-cost, highly-efficient solar energy conversion devices.

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“…Both precursor types are made from p-type Cz-Si and all passivation stacks are deposited using Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD). The first stack is relying on the chemical passivation with a total thickness of d ≈ 160 nm consisting of a hydrogenated siliconoxynitride (SiON) stack (d ≈ 75 nm) capped with SiN X (d ≈ 85 nm) [8]. The second stack relying on the electrical field effect passivation with a total thickness of d ≈ 150 nm is consisting of an AlO X stack (d < 20 nm) and SiN X capping (d ≈ 130 nm) [9].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable reverse bias or integrated bypass diode in HIP‑MWT+ solar cells

Tadeo

Spribille

et al. 2022

EPJ Photovolt.

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The Metal Wrap Through+ (HIP-MWT+) solar cell is based on the PERC concept but features two additional electrical contacts, namely the Schottky contact between p-type Si bulk and Ag n-contact and the metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) contact on the rear side of the cell below the n-contact pads. To prevent thermal hotspots under reverse bias, both contacts shall either restrict current flow or allow a homogenous current flow at low voltage. In this work we present both options. First the stable reverse bias characteristics up to −15 V with a MIS contact using industrially manufactured SiON passivation and second, an integrated by-pass diode using AlOX as insulator in the passivation stack allowing current flows at approximately Vrev = –3.5 V depending on the chosen screen-print paste. The examined Schottky contacts break down at around Vrev = –2.5 V. Reverse bias testing of the cells reveals a solid performance of the cells under reverse bias and an average conversion efficiency of η = 21.2% (AlOX) and η = 20.7% (SiON), respectively.

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Effects of high-temperature treatment on the hydrogen distribution in silicon oxynitride/silicon nitride stacks for crystalline silicon surface passivation

Cited by 7 publications

References 28 publications

Dielectric surface passivation for silicon solar cells: A review

Dielectric surface passivation for silicon solar cells: A review

Enhancing Charge Carrier Lifetime in Metal Oxide Photoelectrodes through Mild Hydrogen Treatment

Stable reverse bias or integrated bypass diode in HIP‑MWT+ solar cells

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