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Effect of diffusion doping-induced defects on shunt resistance affecting Si-nanowire solar cell performance

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Abstract

Si nanowires (SiNWs) are preferred over bulk Si for photovoltaics owing to near-zero optical reflection and band gap tunability. However, the cost-effective fabrication of phosphorus-doped SiNWs poses challenges. The work employs metal-assisted chemical etching for SiNW array fabrication and spin-on doping with P2O5 as the phosphorus source to form an n-type emitter. The P2O5 concentration in the phosphosilicate glass (PSG) sol–gel controls the phosphorus-doping level on the SiNWs. Morphological analysis detects a marginal reduction in the SiNW lengths with P2O5 concentration after PSG layer removal. The optical studies show a significant decrease of the average reflectance to 3.99% and a band gap of 1.59 eV for the optimized doping density (fabricated with a P2O5 concentration of 5 mM), leading to a 34.5% improvement in the ultimate efficiency. Raman asymmetric ratio and photoluminescence emission spectra elucidate the possible surface and bulk defects causing the recombination. The resistivity of the optimized phosphorus-doped SiNW array decreases to 3.37 Ω cm due to a significant increase in the donner concentration. The study compares various methods to estimate the internal cell resistances from the illuminated current–voltage measurement and considers the single-diode model accurate. The power conversion efficiency and the fill factor of the optimized solar cell are 4.09% and 43.4%, respectively, limited by the increased series resistance and decreased shunt resistance.

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Acknowledgements

The research is a part of the project funded by SERB-DST, Govt. of India, with sanction no. CRG/2021/006956 dated 12-Mar-2022 under the Core Research Grant (CRG) scheme. The authors thankfully acknowledge Subhasri Subudhi and Dr. Pitamber Mahanandia for the illuminated J-V measurement.

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  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha, 769008, India

    Sakti Prasanna Muduli & Paresh Kale

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Sakti Prasanna Muduli: Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft, review and editing, Validation, Visualization; Paresh kale: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Resources, Project administration, Writing—Conceptualization, review and editing, Validation.

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Correspondence to Paresh Kale.

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Muduli, S.P., Kale, P. Effect of diffusion doping-induced defects on shunt resistance affecting Si-nanowire solar cell performance. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 35, 430 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-024-12190-7

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