TY - GEN
T1 - Carrier lifetime as a developmental and diagnostic tool in silicon heterojunction solar cells
AU - Bowden, S.
AU - Das, U. K.
AU - Hegedus, S. S.
AU - Birkmire, R. W.
PY - 2006/1/1
Y1 - 2006/1/1
N2 - Minority carrier lifetime measurements were used to optimize processes for amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells. A blue filter highlights surface lifetime and is used to determine the interaction between the front and rear depositions. On n-type substrates, depositing the front p-type layer first led to contamination of the rear surface such that a subsequent n-type deposition on the rear intended as a back surface field had no passivating quality and giving cells with low opencircuit voltages only 580 mV. Switching the order of deposition and depositing the rear n-layer first, improved the quality of the rear passivation and subsequently increased open circuit voltages to over 620 mV; without intrinsic buffer layers. Depositions of intrinsic material resulted in lifetimes of 2.4 ms, and wafer cleaning was found to have a significant impact on measured lifetime. Finally, immersion in hydrofluoric acid was found to be the easiest way to measure substrate lifetime above 1 ms.
AB - Minority carrier lifetime measurements were used to optimize processes for amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells. A blue filter highlights surface lifetime and is used to determine the interaction between the front and rear depositions. On n-type substrates, depositing the front p-type layer first led to contamination of the rear surface such that a subsequent n-type deposition on the rear intended as a back surface field had no passivating quality and giving cells with low opencircuit voltages only 580 mV. Switching the order of deposition and depositing the rear n-layer first, improved the quality of the rear passivation and subsequently increased open circuit voltages to over 620 mV; without intrinsic buffer layers. Depositions of intrinsic material resulted in lifetimes of 2.4 ms, and wafer cleaning was found to have a significant impact on measured lifetime. Finally, immersion in hydrofluoric acid was found to be the easiest way to measure substrate lifetime above 1 ms.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=41749083935&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=41749083935&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279651
DO - 10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279651
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:41749083935
SN - 1424400163
SN - 9781424400164
T3 - Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, WCPEC-4
SP - 1295
EP - 1298
BT - Conference Record of the 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, WCPEC-4
PB - IEEE Computer Society
T2 - 2006 IEEE 4th World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, WCPEC-4
Y2 - 7 May 2006 through 12 May 2006
ER -