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Electron contact interlayers for low-temperature-processed crystalline silicon solar cells
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  • Jesús Ibarra Michel,
  • Anh Huy Tuan Le,
  • Di Yan,
  • Willem-Jan Berghuis,
  • Lars Korte,
  • AnYao Liu,
  • Sieu Pheng Phang,
  • Wenhao Chen,
  • Daniel Macdonald,
  • B. Macco,
  • Ziv Hameiri,
  • James Bullock
Jesús Ibarra Michel
The University of Melbourne Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
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Anh Huy Tuan Le
University of New South Wales School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering
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Di Yan
The University of Melbourne Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
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Willem-Jan Berghuis
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
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Lars Korte
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin fur Materialien und Energie GmbH
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AnYao Liu
Australian National University School of Engineering
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Sieu Pheng Phang
Australian National University School of Engineering
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Wenhao Chen
Nanchang Hangkong University
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Daniel Macdonald
Australian National University School of Engineering
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B. Macco
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
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Ziv Hameiri
University of New South Wales School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering
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James Bullock
The University of Melbourne Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

This study focuses on electron-selective passivating contacts for crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells where an interlayer is used to provide a low contact resistivity between the c-Si substrate and the metal electrode. These electron contact interlayers are used in combination with other passivating interlayers (e.g., a-Si:H, TiO2, and Nb2O5) to improve surface passivation whilst still permitting contact resistivities suitable for high efficiency solar cells. We show that a wide variety of thermally evaporated materials, most of which have ionic character, enable an Ohmic contact between n-type c-Si and Al. From this pool of compounds, we observed that CsBr has especially promising behavior because of its excellent performance and thermal stability when combined with thin passivating layers. With different test structures, we were able to demonstrate low contact resistance using TiO2/CsBr, Nb2O5/CsBr and a-Si:H/CsBr stacks on n-type c-Si. The quality of the provided surface passivation depended on the stack but we achieved the best overall passivation stability with TiO2/CsBr. Finally, we were able to demonstrate an efficiency >20% on a laboratory-scale solar cell that implements the TiO2/CsBr/Al stack as full-area rear side electron selective contact.
03 Jul 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
03 Jul 2023Submitted to Progress in Photovoltaics
03 Jul 2023Submission Checks Completed
03 Jul 2023Assigned to Editor
06 Sep 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
26 Oct 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
12 Nov 20231st Revision Received
12 Nov 2023Submission Checks Completed
12 Nov 2023Assigned to Editor
12 Nov 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending