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Hydrogen-rich c-Si interfacial modification to obtain efficient passivation for silicon heterojunction solar cell

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Abstract

How to passivate the heterojunction between the doped layer and the crystalline silicon (c-Si) base plays a crucial role for the silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cell to obtain high performance, especially high open-circuit voltage (VOC) and fill factor (FF). Here, a hydrogen-rich c-Si interfacial modification was realized by preparing an ultrathin (~ 1.5 nm) intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) onto the c-Si(n) interface with pure silane via plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), prior to the deposition of a ~ 8 nm relatively compact a-Si:H(i) layer for the a-Si:H(p)/c-Si(n) heterojunction. The enhanced effective minority carrier lifetime (τeff) of the c-Si base and VOC of the final solar cell indicated that such interfacial modification improved the heterojunction passivation efficiently by saturating the c-Si dangling bonds (DBs) via hydrogenation with the following deposition of the compact a-Si:H(i) layer that kept the c-Si interface out of direct contact with the doped layer. By altering the deposition pressure, the hydrogen content (CH) in the ultrathin a-Si:H was adjusted regularly to fabricate a series of SHJ solar cells with the area of 244.45 cm2. A maximal conversion efficiency up to 23.81% was achieved with VOC of 742.9 mV, JSC of 38.67 mA/cm2 and FF of 82.99% when the ultrathin a-Si:H had a relatively high CH of about 24–25%.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the “Transformational Technologies for Clean Energy and Demonstration”, Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA21060500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61674151), and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Project (Grant No. Z181100004718003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic System of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Electrical Engineering, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jiachuan You, Huan Liu, Lei Zhao & Wenjing Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jiachuan You, Huan Liu, Lei Zhao & Wenjing Wang

  3. Chengdu R&D Center, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, Ltd., Chengdu, China

    Minghao Qu, Cao Yu & Xixiang Xu

  4. Chengdu Zhufeng Yongming Technology Co., Ltd., Chengdu, China

    Minghao Qu, Cao Yu & Xixiang Xu

  5. Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian, China

    Lei Zhao & Wenjing Wang

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  1. Jiachuan You
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  2. Huan Liu
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  3. Minghao Qu
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  4. Cao Yu
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  5. Lei Zhao
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Correspondence to Lei Zhao.

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You, J., Liu, H., Qu, M. et al. Hydrogen-rich c-Si interfacial modification to obtain efficient passivation for silicon heterojunction solar cell. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 31, 14608–14613 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-04023-0

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