Post-deposition Catalytic-doping of Microcrystalline Silicon Thin-layer for the Application in Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cell

Liu, Yong; Lambertz, Andreas; Pomaska, Manuel; Augarten, Yael; Lentz, Florian; Ding, Kaining; Kim, Do Yun; Mock, Jan

Conference Presentation (Other)

FZJ-2017-01727

Post-deposition Catalytic-doping of Microcrystalline Silicon Thin-layer for the Application in Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cell

Liu, Y. (Corresponding author)FZJ* ; Kim, D. Y.FZJ* ; Pomaska, M.FZJ* ; Augarten, Y.FZJ* ; Lambertz, A.FZJ* ; Lentz, F.FZJ* ; Mock, J.FZJ* ; Ding, K.FZJ*

2016

9th international conference on Hot Wire (Cat) and Initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition, HWCVD9, Philadelphia, USA, 6 Sep 2016 - 9 Sep 2016

Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/13844

Abstract: Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cell is one of the most promising candidates for the next-generation high-efficiency (>25%) mainstream photovoltaic technology. It consists of a crystalline silicon wafer coated with a stack of functional thin-films on both sides. Conventionally, intrinsic and doped amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is used as the passivation layer and emitter or back surface field (BSF), respectively. Doped microcrystalline silicon (µc-Si:H) is considered a more advantageous alternative to the amorphous emitter and BSF layers due to higher electrical conductivity giving rise to lower series and contact resistance. In this contribution, we use the so called “Cat-doping” process, in which the doping is achieved by the radicals decomposed at the hot catalyzer surface, to actively dope µc-Si:H thin-layers, in order to reach conductivity values higher than those achievable in as-grown doped µc-Si:H for the application in SHJ solar cells. We show that the conductivity of the µc-Si:H films notably increased after the Cat-doping, which confirms that it is possible to dope µc-Si:H using Cat-doping. We systematically investigated the impact of (i) the Cat-doping process parameters e.g. wire temperature and gas composition as well as (ii) the µc-Si:H microstructure e.g. the crystalline volume fraction on the effectiveness of the Cat-doping process in terms of conductivity increase. In addition, the (positive and negative) effects of the Cat-doping on the passivation quality of the underlying intrinsic a-Si:H layer will be analyzed.

Keyword(s): Materials Science (2nd) ; Condensed Matter Physics (2nd)

Contributing Institute(s):