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Tunneling Back-Contacted Photovoltaics
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Tunneling Back-Contacted Photovoltaics

Nicholas C. Strandwitz and Benjamin Edward Davis
DOE-LEHIGH-DE-EE-0008176
17 Jul 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2172/1542790
url
https://doi.org/10.2172/1542790View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

This project examined the merits of tunnel insulators sandwiched between silicon absorbers and electron- and hole-selective contact materials for decreasing recombination at this interface. Decreases in recombination at this interface hold the potential to increase efficiency in silicon photovoltaic technologies, while exploiting low temperature (< 300°C) growth methods. The key findings of this project were that incorporating thin (< 3 nm) alumina tunnel layers did decrease interface recombination rates, however not to the extent observed in thick (> 10 nm) layers. The project also found that the most important implementation of tunnel layer passivation occurred with MoOx hole selective materials, since direct Si-MoOx contact yielded very high recombination velocities (S > 1000 cm-s). The primary impact on the state of the art is that this project showed there is merit to incorporation of tunnel insulators between absorbers (e.g., Si) and selective contact materials (e.g., MoOx) in decreasing interface recombination rates while still allowing for carrier extraction the selective contact layer and into a metal.

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