Title
Laser firing in silicon heterojunction interdigitated back contact architecture for low contact resistance
Date Issued
01 December 2019
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Institute for Silicon Photovoltaics
Publisher(s)
Elsevier B.V.
Abstract
This work reports a laser firing technique applied to completed silicon heterojunction interdigitated back contact solar cells in order to lower contact resistance. Previously, the implementation of a-Si:H(i) at the electron contact of polycrystalline silicon solar cells on glass substrates led to an increase in series resistance. The cell architecture with the current record efficiency of 14.2% (with illumination through glass) utilizes only an a-Si:H(n+) layer and 2–2.9 mA cm−2 of short circuit current density is lost due to electrical shading under the electron contact [1,2]. The goal of implementing an a-Si:H(i) layer and laser firing at this contact is to achieve low contact resistance at fired spots while preserving a-Si:H(i) passivation in unfired regions. After the laser firing, VOC was retained, while up to 14% absolute increase in FF was obtained with a mere 0.2 mA cm−2 loss in JSC. In the best performing cell, a 72.1% FF was achieved with a 0.7 mA cm−2 loss in JSC. Two laser sources were used to first ablate a part of the silver contact metal, and then to laser fire through the Si(n)/a-Si:H(i/n+)/ITO/Ag contact. The optimal laser fluence was found to be 1.1–0.5 J cm−2 (355 nm, picosecond pulse duration) and 4.4–5.2 J cm−2 (532 nm, nanosecond pulse duration), respectively. The upper limit on specific contact resistance in the laser fired spots was calculated to be 38±20mΩcm2 as a conservative estimate.
Volume
203
Number
110201
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Física de partículas, Campos de la Física
Ingeniería de materiales
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85072715540
Source
Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
ISSN of the container
09270248
Sponsor(s)
Financial support from the European Regional Development fund and the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia in the framework of the Up-LLPC Project (Grant EFRE-0800580 and EU-1-2-037C ) is gratefully acknowledged. This work is also financially supported by the Helmholtz Innovation Lab HySPRINT . The authors would like to thank Martin Muske, Stefanie Severin, Martina Trahms and Larissa Apel for help with solar cell preparation, Christof Schultz for supervising the Rofin laser system and Carola Klimm for the SEM images.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus