Abstract
Pre-fabrication gettering and bulk hydrogenation processes are applied to low-bulk-lifetime (25 μs) p-type Czochralski silicon wafers before silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cell fabrication, resulting in effective minority carrier lifetime enhancements by a factor of six. On complete SHJ solar cells, this translates to an improvement in the open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 71 mV, resulting in VOC values as high as 692 mV. This remarkably high VOC suggests that efficiencies approaching 25% could be possible for low-cost p-type Czochralski silicon wafers – not the typical expensive, high-quality n-type ones with lifetimes of several milliseconds – in the near future. This method is also likely applicable to n-type SHJ solar cells to reduce the incoming wafer lifetime requirements and to other silicon solar cell structures featuring passivated contacts.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 1700221 |
Journal | Solar RRL |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 1 2018 |
Keywords
- gettering
- heterojunction
- hydrogenation
- p-type Czochralski
- solar cells
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering