Surface passivation of crystalline silicon solar cells: a review

✍ Scribed by Armin G Aberle

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 169 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1062-7995
• DOI: 10.1002/1099-159x(200009/10)8:5<473::aid-pip337>3.0.co;2-d

✦ Synopsis

In the 0879s\ advances in the passivation of both cell surfaces led to the _rst crystalline silicon solar cells with conversion ef_ciencies above 19)[ With today|s industry trend towards thinner wafers and higher cell ef_ciency\ the passivation of the front and rear surfaces is now also becoming vitally important for commercial silicon cells[ This paper presents a review of the surface passivation methods used since the 0869s\ both on laboratory!type as well as industrial cells[ Given the trend towards lower!cost "but also lower!quality# Si materials such as block!cast multicrystalline Si\ ribbon Si or thin!_lm polycrystalline Si\ the most promising surface passivation methods identi_ed to date are the fabrication of a pÐn junction and the subsequent passivation of the resulting silicon surface with plasma silicon nitride as this material\ besides reducing surface recombination and re~ection losses\ additionally provides a very ef_cient passivation of bulk defects[