Passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: from concepts and materials to prospects

J. Melskens; B.W.H. van de Loo; B. Macco; L.E. Black; S. Smit; W.M.M. Kessels

doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2797106

Passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: from concepts and materials to prospects

J. Melskens, B.W.H. van de Loo, B. Macco, L.E. Black, S. Smit, W.M.M. Kessels

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Abstract

To further increase the conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells, it is vital to reduce the recombination losses associated with the contacts. Therefore, a contact structure that simultaneously passivates the c-Si surface while selectively extracting only one type of charge carrier (i.e., either electrons or holes) is desired. Realizing such passivating contacts in c-Si solar cells has become an important research objective, and an overview and classification of work to date on this topic is presented here. Using this overview, we discuss the design guidelines for passivating contacts and outline their prospects.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	373-388
Number of pages	16
Journal	IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume	8
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2797106
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2018

Funding

Manuscript received December 20, 2017; accepted January 16, 2018. Date of publication February 14, 2018; date of current version February 16, 2018. This work was supported by the Top consortia for Knowledge and Innovation Solar Energy programs “COMPASS,” “RADAR,” and “AAA” of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of The Netherlands. The work of J. Melskens was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research under the Dutch TTW-VENI Grant 15896. (Corresponding author: Jimmy Melskens.) The authors are with the Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven MB 5600, The Netherlands (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]). The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Dr. I. G. Romijn from the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) (The Netherlands), Dr. F. Duerinckx from imec (Belgium), and Dr. K. Nakano from Kaneka Corporation (Japan) for providing the latest values of J0 and ρcontact for the rear side of the n-Pasha, n-PERT, and SHJ solar cells, respectively. Dr. G. J. M. Janssen from ECN (The Netherlands) is acknowl- edged for assistance with the Quokka simulations. Additionally, we acknowledge J. Palmans and M. F. J. Vos from Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) for useful discussions.

Keywords

Charge carrier lifetime
contacts
crystalline silicon (c-Si)
passivation
photovoltaic (PV) cells

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1109/JPHOTOV.2018.2797106

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Cite this

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AB - To further increase the conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells, it is vital to reduce the recombination losses associated with the contacts. Therefore, a contact structure that simultaneously passivates the c-Si surface while selectively extracting only one type of charge carrier (i.e., either electrons or holes) is desired. Realizing such passivating contacts in c-Si solar cells has become an important research objective, and an overview and classification of work to date on this topic is presented here. Using this overview, we discuss the design guidelines for passivating contacts and outline their prospects.

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Passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells: from concepts and materials to prospects

Abstract

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Keywords

UN SDGs

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