TY  - JOUR
AU  - Köhler, Malte
AU  - Pomaska, Manuel
AU  - Procel, Paul
AU  - Santbergen, Rudi
AU  - Zamchiy, Alexandr
AU  - Macco, Bart
AU  - Lambertz, Andreas
AU  - Duan, Weiyuan
AU  - Cao, Pengfei
AU  - Klingebiel, Benjamin
AU  - Li, Shenghao
AU  - Eberst, Alexander
AU  - Luysberg, Martina
AU  - Qiu, Kaifu
AU  - Isabella, Olindo
AU  - Finger, Friedhelm
AU  - Kirchartz, Thomas
AU  - Rau, Uwe
AU  - Ding, Kaining
TI  - A silicon carbide-based highly transparent passivating contact for crystalline silicon solar cells approaching efficiencies of 24%
JO  - Nature energy
VL  - 6
SN  - 2058-7546
CY  - London
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
M1  - FZJ-2021-01816
SP  - 529–537
PY  - 2021
AB  - 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%.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000640742200001
DO  - DOI:10.1038/s41560-021-00806-9
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/891904
ER  -