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Title:
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Cost-effective MC-Si cell processing by screenprinting on remote-PECVD layers
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Author(s):
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Published by:
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Publication date:
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ECN
Solar Energy
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1998
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ECN report number:
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Document type:
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ECN-RX--98-039
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Article (scientific)
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Number of pages:
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5
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Published in: Paper, presented at the 2nd World conference and exhibition on photovoltaic solar energy conversion, Vienna, Austria, 06-10 July (), , , Vol., p.-.
Abstract:
Silicon nitride (SiN) deposited in a remote-PECVD system has been appliedas AR layer on 10x10 cm2 multicrystalline Si cells in an industrial process
using screenprinting on, and 'firing through' the AR coating. It is shown
that this deposition process induces an efficient surface and bulk
passivation of the solar cells, leading to an absolute efficiency improvement
of about 1% when compared with a process sequence in which APCVD TiO2 is
deposited after metallization. The best cell of the remote-PECVD SiN group
has a Voc of 608 mV, a Jsc of 32.8 mA/cm2 and an efficiency of 14.3%.
The efficiency improvement by applying remote-plasma SiN is due to both an
enhanced lifetime of the minority charge carriers in the bulk and a reduced
recombination at the front surface. Spectral response measurements reveal an
increase of the internal quantum efficiency across the whole wavelength range
if remote-plasma SiN is applied instead of APCVD TiO2. The increase of the
blue response, i.e. the reduction of the front surface recombination, is
remarkably high if we take into account that (a) the absorption of SiN in
this wavelength region is significantly higher than for TiO2, and (b) the
emitters used in this study are characterized by a rather high P
concentration at the surface. The importance of these results is that they
prove for the first time that it is possible to insert homogeneous SiN
deposition by remote-PECVD on 10x10 cm2 and larger wafers in an industrial
processing scheme using screenprinting for front and rear side metallization.
5 refs.
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