Guillaume von Gastrow

Black silicon solar cells with interdigitated back-contacts achieve 22.1% efficiency

The nanostructuring of silicon surfaces--known as black silicon--is a promising approach to eliminate front-surface reflection in photovoltaic devices without the need for a conventional antireflection coating. This might lead to both an increase in efficiency and a reduction in the manufacturing costs of solar cells. However, all previous attempts to integrate black silicon into solar cells have resulted in cell efficiencies well below 20% due to the increased charge carrier recombination at the nanostructured surface. Here, we show that a conformal alumina film can solve the issue of surface recombination in black silicon solar cells by providing excellent chemical and electrical passivation. We demonstrate that efficiencies above 22% can be reached, even in thick interdigitated back-contacted cells, where carrier transport is very sensitive to front surface passivation. This means that the surface recombination issue has truly been solved and black silicon solar cells have real potential for industrial production. Furthermore, we show that the use of black silicon can result in a 3% increase in daily energy production when compared with a reference cell with the same efficiency, due to its better angular acceptance.

Effect of substrate pretreatments on the atomic layer deposited Al2O3 passivation quality

The authors show here that the passivation quality of Al2O3 is highly sensitive to the surface condition prior to the atomic layer deposition, affecting especially the thermal stability of the film. Pretreatments like diluted HCl bath or preheating at 200 °C both improved significantly the passivation quality and thermal stability of the films. In addition, the authors observed that a thin chemical SiO2 layer resulting from diluted HCl solves the blistering problem often encountered in H2O based atomic layer deposited process. Finally, the authors show that the chemical oxide protects the surface from contaminants, enabling long storage times in a dirty ambient between the cleaning and the film deposition.

Recombination processes in passivated boron-implanted black silicon emitters

In this paper, we study the recombination mechanisms in ion-implanted black silicon (bSi) emitters and discuss their advantages over diffused emitters. In the case of diffusion, the large bSi surface area increases emitter doping and consequently Auger recombination compared to a planar surface. The total doping dose is on the contrary independent of the surface area in implanted emitters, and as a result, we show that ion implantation allows control of emitter doping without compromise in the surface aspect ratio. The possibility to control surface doping via implantation anneal becomes highly advantageous in bSi emitters, where surface passivation becomes critical due to the increased surface area. We extract fundamental surface recombination velocities Sn through numerical simulations and obtain the lowest values at the highest anneal temperatures. With these conditions, an excellent emitter saturation current (J0e) is obtained in implanted bSi emitters, reaching 20 fA/cm2 ± 5 fA/cm2 at a sheet resista...

Effect of ALD reactants on blistering of aluminum oxide films on crystalline silicon

Atomic layer deposited aluminum oxide (Al2O3) has in recent years proven to be a promising surface passivation material for crystalline silicon solar cells. However, blistering in Al2O3 films is a common problem deteriorating the surface passivation quality. Here, blistering is studied from material aspects including film thickness, film composition and postdeposition heat treatment. We show how thicker films, higher annealing temperatures and longer annealing times lead to more severe blistering and demonstrate how blistering can be avoided by using either O3 as the oxidant or depositing a thin TiO2 layer at the silicon interface.

2D/3D Simulations of black-silicon interdigitated back-contacted c-si(n) solar cells

Black silicon (b-Si) reduces drastically light reflectance in the front side of c-Si solar cells to values near zero for the whole absorbed solar spectrum. In this work, we apply 2D and 3D simulations to explore the efficiency limits of interdigitated back-contacted c-Si(n) solar cells with line or point contacts respectively, using ALD Al2O3 passivated b-Si in the front surface. Realistic physical and technological parameters involved in a conventional oven-based fabrication process are considered in the simulations, especially those related to surface recombination on the b-Si as well as high doped p+/n+ strip regions. One important issue is the temporal stability of surface passivation on b-Si surfaces. In this work experimental long-term b-Si surface passivation data after two years and its impact on cell performance are studied. Simulations demonstrate initial and final photovoltaic efficiencies over 24.6% and 23.2% respectively for an emitter coverage of 80% independently of the cell contact strategy. A photocurrent loss about 1.3 mA/cm2 occurs when surface recombination velocity at the b-Si surfaces degrades from 6 cm/s to a final value of 28 cm/s.