Outstanding Surface Passivation for Highly Efficient Silicon Solar Cells Enabled by Innovative AlyTiOx/TiOx Electron-Selective Contact Stack

Mohamed M. Shehata, Pheng Phang, Rabin Basnet, Yanting Yin, Felipe Kremer, Gabriel Bartholazzi, Gunther G. Andersson, Daniel H. Macdonald, Lachlan E. Black

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)
82 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Passivating contacts based on transition metal oxides (TMOs) have the potential to overcome existing performance limitations in high-efficiency crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells, which is a significant driver for continuing cost/Watt reductions of photovoltaic electricity. Herein, innovative stacks of Al-alloyed TiOx (AlyTiOx) and pure TiOx as transparent electron-selective passivating contacts for n-type c-Si surfaces are explored. An optimized stack of 2 nm AlyTiOx and 2 nm TiOx is shown to provide both record-quality surface passivation and excellent electrical contact, with a surface recombination current density prefactor J 0 of 2.4 fA cm−2 and a specific contact resistivity ρ c of 15.2 mΩ cm2. The performance of this innovative stack significantly exceeds previously reported values for pure or doped TiOx single layers, SiOx/TiOx stacks, a-Si:H/TiOx stacks, and other transparent contact technologies. Furthermore, an excellent efficiency of 21.9% is attained by incorporating the optimized stack as a full-area rear contact in an n-type c-Si solar cell. The findings set a new benchmark for the passivation performance of metal oxide-based passivating contacts, bringing it to a level on par with state-of-the-art SiOx/poly-Si contacts while greatly improving optical transparency.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2200550
Number of pages13
JournalSolar RRL
Volume6
Issue number10
Early online date2 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Keywords

  • high efficiencies
  • passivating contacts
  • photovoltaics
  • silicon solar cells
  • silicon surface passivation
  • TiO
  • transparent electron-selective contacts

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