%0 Journal Article
%A Köhler, Malte
%A Pomaska, Manuel
%A Procel, Paul
%A Santbergen, Rudi
%A Zamchiy, Alexandr
%A Macco, Bart
%A Lambertz, Andreas
%A Duan, Weiyuan
%A Cao, Pengfei
%A Klingebiel, Benjamin
%A Li, Shenghao
%A Eberst, Alexander
%A Luysberg, Martina
%A Qiu, Kaifu
%A Isabella, Olindo
%A Finger, Friedhelm
%A Kirchartz, Thomas
%A Rau, Uwe
%A Ding, Kaining
%T A silicon carbide-based highly transparent passivating contact for crystalline silicon solar cells approaching efficiencies of 24%
%J Nature energy
%V 6
%@ 2058-7546
%C London
%I Nature Publishing Group
%M FZJ-2021-01816
%P 529–537
%D 2021
%X A highly transparent passivating contact (TPC) as front contact for crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells could in principle combine high conductivity, excellent surface passivation and high optical transparency. However, the simultaneous optimization of these features remains challenging. Here, we present a TPC consisting of a silicon-oxide tunnel layer followed by two layers of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon carbide (nc-SiC:H(n)) deposited at different temperatures and a sputtered indium tin oxide (ITO) layer (c-Si(n)/SiO2/nc-SiC:H(n)/ITO). While the wide band gap of nc-SiC:H(n) ensures high optical transparency, the double layer design enables good passivation and high conductivity translating into an improved short-circuit current density (40.87 mA cm−2), fill factor (80.9%) and efficiency of 23.99 ± 0.29% (certified). Additionally, this contact avoids the need for additional hydrogenation or high-temperature postdeposition annealing steps. We investigate the passivation mechanism and working principle of the TPC and provide a loss analysis based on numerical simulations outlining pathways towards conversion efficiencies of 26%.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000640742200001
%R 10.1038/s41560-021-00806-9
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/891904