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

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Abstract

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-SiOX: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-SiOX: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-SiOX: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-SiOX:H to get a lower series resistance (Rs) 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/cm2, 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.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB1500402), The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 62074084).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Photoelectronic Thin Film Devices and Technology of Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Jiakai Zhou, Boyu Zhang, Junfan Chen, Huizhi Ren, Qian Huang, Xiaodan Zhang, Guofu Hou & Ying Zhao

  2. Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic Thin Film Devices and Technology of Tianjin, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Jiakai Zhou, Boyu Zhang, Junfan Chen, Huizhi Ren, Qian Huang, Xiaodan Zhang, Guofu Hou & Ying Zhao

  3. Engineering Center of Thin Film Photoelectronic Technology of Ministry of Education, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Jiakai Zhou, Boyu Zhang, Junfan Chen, Huizhi Ren, Qian Huang, Xiaodan Zhang, Guofu Hou & Ying Zhao

  4. Sino-Euro Joint Research Center for Photovoltaic Power Generation of Tianjin, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Jiakai Zhou, Boyu Zhang, Junfan Chen, Huizhi Ren, Qian Huang, Xiaodan Zhang, Guofu Hou & Ying Zhao

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  1. Jiakai Zhou
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Correspondence to Guofu Hou.

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Zhou, J., Zhang, B., Chen, J. et al. Performance improvement of planar silicon heterojunction solar cells via sandwich-like p-type emitters. Appl. Phys. A 127, 735 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-021-04883-1

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