Journal article
Lithium Fluoride Based Electron Contacts for High Efficiency n-Type Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
J Bullock, P Zheng, Q Jeangros, M Tosun, M Hettick, CM Sutter-Fella, Y Wan, T Allen, D Yan, D Macdonald, S De Wolf, A Hessler-Wyser, A Cuevas, A Javey
Advanced Energy Materials | WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH | Published : 2016
Abstract
Low-resistance contact to lightly doped n-type crystalline silicon (c-Si) has long been recognized as technologically challenging due to the pervasive Fermi-level pinning effect. This has hindered the development of certain devices such as n-type c-Si solar cells made with partial rear contacts (PRC) directly to the lowly doped c-Si wafer. Here, a simple and robust process is demonstrated for achieving mΩ cm2 scale contact resistivities on lightly doped n-type c-Si via a lithium fluoride/aluminum contact. The realization of this low-resistance contact enables the fabrication of a first-of-its-kind high-efficiency n-type PRC solar cell. The electron contact of this cell is made to less than 1..
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Awarded by Basic Energy Sciences
Funding Acknowledgements
J.B. and P.Z. contributed equally to this work. Device design, fabrication, and characterization were funded by the Bay Area Photovoltaics Consortium (BAPVC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Materials characterization was supported by the Electronic Materials Programs, funded by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Material Sciences and Engineering Division of the U.S. Department of Energy under (Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231). Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Work at EPFL was supported by the Office Federal de l'Energie (OFEN) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Electron Microscopy (CIME) of EPFL is acknowledged for access to their electron microscopes. C.M.S.-F. acknowledges financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (P2EZP2_155586).