Towards 20% Solar Cell Efficiency Using Silicon from Metallurgical Process Route

Preis, P.; Buchholz, Florian; Díaz-Pérez, P.; Glatz-Reichenbach, J.; Peter, Christoph; Schmitt, Stefan; Theobald, J.; Kingshott, Peter; Soiland, A.-K.

doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2014.08.030

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…4a shows the effective minority charge carrier recombination lifetime of the same samples that have b-Si on both sides at an injection level of 10 15 cm -3 , which is a typical condition under one sun illumination. The figure reveals that all samples have an effective carrier lifetime on the order of hundreds of µs even without polishing, which is sufficiently high for >20 %-efficient PERC solar cells [31]- [33].…”

Section: Minority Charge Carrier Lifetimementioning

confidence: 91%

Effect of MACE Parameters on Electrical and Optical Properties of ALD Passivated Black Silicon

Chen

Pasanen

Vähänissi

et al. 2019

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE) enables efficient texturing of diamond-wire sawn multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers. However, the excellent optics are often sacrificed by polishing the surface to achieve better surface passivation with chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) silicon nitride (SiNx). In this work, we show that a polishing step is not required when CVD SiNx is replaced with atomic-layer-deposited (ALD) aluminum oxide (Al2O3). Indeed, while polishing increases reflectance, it has in general only very modest effect on surface recombination velocity of ALD-passivated b-Si. Furthermore, since ALD Al2O3 is compatible with various surface morphologies due to its excellent conformality, the MACE parameters can be more freely adjusted. First, the concentration of silver nitrate (AgNO3) in AgNO3/H2O solution that is used to deposit Ag nanoparticles is shown to affect the final b-Si morphology. Instead of needle-shaped b-Si produced by 5 mmol/L AgNO3 concentration, two orders of magnitude lower AgNO3 concentration produces porous structures, which are more challenging to passivate. Additionally, we demonstrate that a separate Ag nanoparticle removal step in nitric acid (HNO3) is not a prerequisite for high carrier lifetime. Instead, Ag nanoparticles present during polishing in a HF/HNO3/H2O solution affect the final b-Si morphology by accelerating the etching of Si. The results demonstrate that no trade-offs are necessary between optical and electrical properties of MACE b-Si when using ALD.

show abstract

Section: Minority Charge Carrier Lifetimementioning

confidence: 91%

Effect of MACE Parameters on Electrical and Optical Properties of ALD Passivated Black Silicon

Chen

Pasanen

Vähänissi

et al. 2019

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As the GHG intensity of electricity used in the PV manufacturing process is the most significant CRF hotspot (Figure 4) (Figure 3 and Figure 5) is significant as commercial multisilicon PV modules have shown an average year on year efficiency increase of only 0. in trichlorosilane (TCS) based FBR reactors [143] and the formation of fine particles and consequent contamination of silicon in silane based FBR reactors [144]. Market adoption of UMG silicon can be accelerated through focused research on reducing light induced degradation due to boron-oxygen clusters [145], improving defect gettering in UMG silicon feedstock [146], increasing efficiencies through novel cell fabrication processes [147], and reducing carbon, boron and phosphorus impurity levels [148][149] to avoid cell performance issues in downstream PV processing activities.…”

Section: Equivalence Between Manufacturing and Module Efficiency Imprmentioning

confidence: 99%

A climate rationale for research and development on photovoltaics manufacture

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Photovoltaic (PV) power generation is critical to many climate policy goals, as PV electricity results in little or no greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during use, utilities and governments view PV installations as a way to accelerate progress towards emissions reduction targets. However, typical analyses of the GHG implications of the PV lifecycle ignore inter-temporal effects, in which the initial GHGs emitted in PV manufacturing phase must be offset by avoided fossil-fuel combustion emissions during use. Thus, the overall climate benefits of PV are a function of both GHG efficiency of PV manufacture, and electricity generation efficiency of deployed modules during use. Improvements to PV manufacture result in immediate climate benefits, in contrast with improvements in module efficiency which may offset greater GHG emissions, albeit over decades of useful life. This study presents a novel framework using the cumulative radiative forcing(CRF) metric to demonstrate the significant climate benefit of improving PV manufacturing processes predominantly located in GHG-intensive geographies and determines the equivalent increase in module efficiency that provide the same climate benefit. The findings show low-carbon PV manufacturing increases the life-cycle climate benefit by 20% and is equivalent to increasing the module efficiency from a baseline value of 17% to 21.7% and 16% to 18.7% for mono-Si and multi-Si modules, respectively. With commercial module efficiency having increased annually by only 0.25% over the last 12 years, the implication is that improving PV manufacturing may be more effective than module efficiency improvements for increasing the climate benefit of terawatt scale PV installations.

show abstract

“…Additionally, new Si-purification techniques could also improve the PV life-cycle assessment with a reduced emission budget. This is the main strength of upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG) Si, a material obtained via an alternative purification route resulting in lower economic and environmental cost as compared to conventional polysilicon (poly-Si) [6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction of trapping and recombination in upgraded metallurgical grade silicon: Impact of phosphorous diffusion gettering

Dasilva-Villanueva

Catalán‐Gómez

Marrón

et al. 2022

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Towards 20% Solar Cell Efficiency Using Silicon from Metallurgical Process Route

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Effect of MACE Parameters on Electrical and Optical Properties of ALD Passivated Black Silicon

Effect of MACE Parameters on Electrical and Optical Properties of ALD Passivated Black Silicon

A climate rationale for research and development on photovoltaics manufacture

Reduction of trapping and recombination in upgraded metallurgical grade silicon: Impact of phosphorous diffusion gettering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About