Performance improvement of planar silicon heterojunction solar cells via sandwich-like p-type emitters

• Published in: Applied physics. A, Materials science & processing Vol. 127; no. 10
• Main Authors: Zhou, Jiakai, Zhang, Boyu, Chen, Junfan, Ren, Huizhi, Huang, Qian, Zhang, Xiaodan, Hou, Guofu, Zhao, Ying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-10-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Applied physics; Boron; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Circuits; Condensed Matter Physics; Emitters; Heterojunctions; Hydrogenation; Machines; Manufacturing; Materials science; Monolayers; Multilayers; Nanocrystals; Nanotechnology; Open circuit voltage; Optical and Electronic Materials; Photovoltaic cells; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Processes; Short circuit currents; Silicon; Silicon oxides; Solar cells; Surfaces and Interfaces; Thickness; Thin Films; Solar cells; Planar wafer; p-type emitters; Triple layers; Silicon heterojunction
• ISSN: 0947-8396; 1432-0630
• DOI: 10.1007/s00339-021-04883-1

The emitter is one of the most crucial issues to achieve high-performance silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. In this work, we study the effects of single-layer and multi-layer p-type emitters, including boron-doped hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si:H) and/or boron-doped hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon oxide (nc-SiO
X
:H) films, on the device performance of SHJ solar cells. The results demonstrate that the sandwich-like p-type emitters of p-nc-Si:H/p-nc-SiO
X
:H/p
+
-nc-Si:H have the potential to become an effective and efficient candidate to result in higher efficiency. The lightly boron-doped p-nc-Si:H is used to reduce the incubation layer thickness in the initial stage of growth, while the low parasitic absorption of the p-nc-SiO
X
:H emitter leads to an increase in short-circuit current. Moreover, a highly boron-doped p
+
-nc-Si:H layer is implemented on top of the p-nc-SiO
X
:H to get a lower series resistance (
R
s
) and higher fill factor. Lastly, we achieve a champion SHJ solar cell on planar wafer with an open-circuit voltage of 678.2 mV, a short-circuit current density of 36.6 mA/cm
2
, a fill factor of 77% and a conversion efficiency of 19.11%.Kindly check and confirm the ON for the affiliation 1 and 2.We confirm the accuracy of the affiliations.
Graphic abstract