Sensitivity Analysis of Industrial Multicrystalline PERC Silicon Solar Cells by Means of 3-D Device Simulation and Metamodeling

Müller, M.; Altermatt, Pietro P.; Wagner, Hannes; Fischer, Gerd

doi:10.1109/jphotov.2013.2287753

Cited by 20 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Several recent studies throw some light on this issue [52][53][54][55]. The most recent [55] shares the author's view that, now the industry has invested in a transition to PERC technology, this provides a path for manufacturers for incremental improvements to values of cell efficiency to close to the 25% value demonstrated in the laboratory.…”

Section: Performance Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Attention to the surface recombination velocity along the noncontacted regions of the rear surface [52] as well as to the formation of the doped region in the contact areas [53,55] is expected to bring the rear surface contribution to J o below that of the emitter, then elevating recombination in the bulk of the device to being the major contributor to J o , determined by the combination of minority carrier lifetime and doping level in these regions. B-doped, p-type wafers presently dominate commercial production.…”

Section: Performance Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC): From conception to mass production

Green

2015

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

366

178

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Section: Performance Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Performance Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC): From conception to mass production

Green

2015

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

366

178

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“…Implementing the appropriate models in TCAD simulations should allow to make reliable predictions of electrical parameters such as leakage current, lifetime, retention time, noise performance etc. For advanced solar cells structures like passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) 175,176 and heterojunction with intrinsic thin layer (HIT), 177,178 the recombination properties of structural defects, assuming an interfacial density of traps with a single mid-gap energy level using Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) statistics, have been successfully implemented in TCAD simulation to determine the defect impact on the device performance. 179 This approach cannot straightforward be used for the simulation of the leakage current in advanced junction diodes as the presence of high electric fields necessitates to take into account tunneling effects.…”

Section: Tcad Simulation Of Extended Defectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review—Device Assessment of Electrically Active Defects in High-Mobility Materials

Claeys

Simoen

Eneman

et al. 2016

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

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The stringent device performance specifications of advanced scaled down technologies necessitates the implementation of high mobility substrates such as SiGe, Strained Si (sSi), Ge, sGe and/or III-V materials like GaAs, InGaAs. The control of the stress-induced defects remains a key challenge. Simple device structures such as capacitors, diodes and transistors are used to assess the electrical activity of extended defects (dislocations; antiphase boundaries; …) in high-mobility channel materials. Beside junction current analyses and lifetime studies, also the use of low-frequency noise characterization is reported. Special case studies are discussed to illustrate the used methodology. The potential of TCAD studies to better understand the electrical defect activity is also briefly addressed.

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“…Technology computer aided design (TCAD) device simulations can provide insight into the relative performance of these materials, establish materials targets for high efficiency, and identify device architectures that are more tolerant to the presence of dislocations. Device simulations have typically modeled dislocations as macroscopic variations in effective bulk lifetime [13,14]. Bulk lifetime models do not differentiate between dislocations and other defects, such as grain boundaries or metal impurities, and neglect the charging of these defects through the occupation of spatially localized shallow and deep energy levels within the band gap.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dislocation-limited performance of advanced solar cells determined by TCAD modeling

Needleman

Wagner

Altermatt³

et al. 2016

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

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In recent years, low-cost silicon for photovoltaic applications has trended toward smaller grain sizes with lower dislocation densities. These changes, coupled with advanced device architectures like heterojunction and passivated emitter and rear cells, have enabled higher efficiencies, including new world records. To establish material requirements for further improvement, we model dislocations with different recombination strengths in Sentaurus Device using mid-gap defects spatially localized at the nanoscale in three dimensions. This approach accounts for the charging of dislocations and differentiates between dislocations and grain boundaries or metal impurities. Simulations that model dislocations as macroscopic variations in effective bulk lifetime or diode parameters do not address these issues. We validate our model by simulating the world record multicrystalline silicon solar cell. We find that three parameters influence cell efficiency: the area fraction of the cell containing dislocations, the dislocation density within defect clusters, and the concentration of recombination centers at these dislocations. We provide targets for these parameters and show how our results can be used to determine the potential gains from reducing dislocations in experimental devices and materials. We further predict that device architectures that lead to higher-injection, such as silicon heterojunction cells, are more robust to the presence of dislocations.

show abstract

Sensitivity Analysis of Industrial Multicrystalline PERC Silicon Solar Cells by Means of 3-D Device Simulation and Metamodeling

Cited by 20 publications

References 22 publications

The Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC): From conception to mass production

The Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC): From conception to mass production

Review—Device Assessment of Electrically Active Defects in High-Mobility Materials

Dislocation-limited performance of advanced solar cells determined by TCAD modeling

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