Co-Diffusion Processing of p+/n/n+ Structure for n-Type Silicon Solar Cells Using Boron Doped Paper Sheets

Numerous efforts have been devoted to either understanding or fabricating efficient carrier-selective contacts, since they play a significantly crucial role in high-performance solar cells. In this work, we demonstrate that the asymmetry between electron conductivity and hole conductivity is important but far not enough for efficient carrier-selective contacts. Taking electron-selective contacts as examples, cell performances are greatly affected by the electron conductivity, the hole conductivity, and the work function of electron-selective materials, together with conduction and valance band offset between absorbers and electron-selective layers. When designing efficient electron-selective contacts, all these factors should be considered to mitigate carrier recombination and downward bending of the electron quasi-Fermi level within and around the contacts and to ensure low interfacial resistance for electrons. Although the absorber is crystalline silicon in the study, we believe that our understanding and design guidelines are also applicable to solar cells based on other absorbers.

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Understanding and design of efficient carrier-selective contacts for solar cells

Wang

Zhang

Sun

et al. 2021

AIP Advances

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Study of Aluminium, Gallium and Gallium Boron as P-Type Dopants for New-Generation n+np+ Solar Cells

Hakim,

Boucheham,

M. Kezrane

2024

jsesd

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Silicon n-type n+np+ solar cells offer many advantages over conventional n+pp+ cells, including better resistance to light-induced degradation and higher conversion efficiency potential. However, the formation of the p+ emitter in n+np+ cells requires high diffusion temperatures and the use of alternative boron dopants is necessary to overcome the limitations of conventional processes. This study explored aluminium, gallium and gallium/boron co-doping as p-type dopants for the fabrication of thin (140 µm) n+np+ solar cells. The results showed that aluminium is not suitable for the formation of the p+ emitter due to its low solid solubility in silicon and its high segregation towards silicon oxide. Gallium required high diffusion temperatures and suffered from a degradation of the concentration profile in later stages of the manufacturing process, leading to poor performing solar cells. Gallium/boron co-doping has proved to be a promising alternative to boron. Thin n+np+ solar cells doped with GaB achieved a maximum conversion efficiency of 13.7%, slightly lower than that of boron-doped cells (14.9%). Optimisation of the GaB diffusion process and surface passivation could further improve the performance of these cells. This study demonstrates the potential of gallium/boron co-doping for the manufacture of new-generation thin n+np+ solar cells. Further research is needed to fully exploit the advantages of this technology and contribute to improving the efficiency and cost of silicon solar cells.

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Co-Diffusion Processing of p+/n/n+ Structure for n-Type Silicon Solar Cells Using Boron Doped Paper Sheets

Cited by 2 publications

References 14 publications

Understanding and design of efficient carrier-selective contacts for solar cells

Understanding and design of efficient carrier-selective contacts for solar cells

Study of Aluminium, Gallium and Gallium Boron as P-Type Dopants for New-Generation n+np+ Solar Cells

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