TY - GEN
T1 - Diffusion profiles beneath silicon heterojunction contacts reduce contact resistivity and increase efficiency
AU - Weigand, William
AU - Muralidharan, Pradyumna
AU - Chen, Daniel
AU - Soeriyadi, Anastasia
AU - Stefani, Bruno Vicari
AU - Hallam, Brett
AU - Goodnick, Stephen M.
AU - Yu, Zhengshan J.
AU - Holman, Zachary C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) through project 2017/RND005.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 IEEE.
PY - 2020/6/14
Y1 - 2020/6/14
N2 - Silicon heterojunction solar cells have historically had high open-circuit voltages due to the passivation provided by the intrinsic amorphous silicon layer, yet this same layer can also limit the fill factor of these devices. In comparison, diffused-junction solar cells have traditionally had higher fill factors than silicon heterojunction solar cells due to the low contact resistivity between the metal and doped surface of the wafer. By combining these two device architectures, it is possible to increase the fill factor - through a reduction in contact resistivity - while also maintaining a high open-circuit voltage with the passivating contact. In particular, we show through simulation and experiment that adding a diffusion under an amorphous silicon heterojunction contact reduces contact resistivity by approximately 0.04\ \Omega\text{cm}^{2}, and, in contrast to standard silicon heterojunction devices, the contact resistivity does not increase with the intrinsic amorphous silicon thickness. In addition, this contact allows for an efficiency boost of 0.56-0.85% absolute over our standard device structure.
AB - Silicon heterojunction solar cells have historically had high open-circuit voltages due to the passivation provided by the intrinsic amorphous silicon layer, yet this same layer can also limit the fill factor of these devices. In comparison, diffused-junction solar cells have traditionally had higher fill factors than silicon heterojunction solar cells due to the low contact resistivity between the metal and doped surface of the wafer. By combining these two device architectures, it is possible to increase the fill factor - through a reduction in contact resistivity - while also maintaining a high open-circuit voltage with the passivating contact. In particular, we show through simulation and experiment that adding a diffusion under an amorphous silicon heterojunction contact reduces contact resistivity by approximately 0.04\ \Omega\text{cm}^{2}, and, in contrast to standard silicon heterojunction devices, the contact resistivity does not increase with the intrinsic amorphous silicon thickness. In addition, this contact allows for an efficiency boost of 0.56-0.85% absolute over our standard device structure.
KW - contact resistivity
KW - diffusion
KW - passivation
KW - silicon homo-heterojunction
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U2 - 10.1109/PVSC45281.2020.9300520
DO - 10.1109/PVSC45281.2020.9300520
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85099569142
T3 - Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference
SP - 1404
EP - 1407
BT - 2020 47th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2020
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 47th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, PVSC 2020
Y2 - 15 June 2020 through 21 August 2020
ER -