INVESTIGATION OF SCREEN-PRINTED AND EVAPORATED METAL CONTACTS ON BORON IMPLANTED EMITTER

2021-8-27
Özmen, Ege
Due to advantages in device manufacturing and the low cost of ownership, crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells fabricated on p-type wafers continue to dominate the photovoltaic (PV) market. Studies on n-type Czochralski (CZ) substrates have shown that they are more desirable for terrestrial applications than p-type substrates due to superior material and performance advantages such as higher minority carrier lifetime and easier surface passivation, absence of light-induced degradation (LID), and low sensitivity to metallic impurities. With these advantages, n-type CZ-based c-Si solar cells hold great potential in the future PV industry. However, various difficulties in device processing and higher wafer cost are still the major obstacles in penetrating the n-type solar cells into the commercial market. In dealing with these difficulties, new processes like ion implantation are being considered to replace the existing ones to simplify the process conditions and lower the cost. This thesis aims to optimize the activation temperature and duration of the boron implanted silicon with metal contacts fabricated by screen printing and e-beam evaporation. In order to understand the uniformity of the ion implantation, sheet resistance measurements were carried out. Al2O3/SiNx stack was used for passivation and ARC. Also, deeper boron concentration leads to lower contact resistivity is tested with e-beam evaporated and screen-printed metal contacts with contact resistivity values measured using Transmission Line Measurement (TLM). We have shown that successful metal contact to ion-implanted Si can be formed using both techniques. This thesis presents excessive process information and results for the screen-printed and e-beam evaporated samples onto the boron implanted silicon.

Suggestions

Optimization of fabrication steps for n-type c-Si solar cells
Orhan, Efe; Ünalan, Hüsnü Emrah; Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (2019)
Crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells fabricated on p-type wafers are still dominating the photovoltaic (PV) industry due to advantages in device processing and early focus on p-type cells in the development phase of the industry. Over the years, studies on n-type Czochralski (CZ) substrates have shown that they can be more desirable for the terrestrial applications due to superior material and process advantages such as higher minority carrier lifetime, easier passivation of the surface, absence of light ...
Analysis of boron doped hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide thin film for silicon heterojunction solar cells
Salimi, Arghavan; Turan, Raşit; Department of Micro and Nanotechnology (2019)
Silicon based solar cells are the dominant type of solar cells in the photovoltaic industry. Recently, there have been increasing efforts to develop c-Si solar cells with higher efficiency and lower cost. Among them, silicon heterojunction solar cell (SHJ) is attracting much attention because of its superior performance values demonstrated at both R&D and industrial levels. One of the common limiting criteria is the recombination at the front side which can be solved by providing proper passivation at the f...
Improvement of silicon heterojunction solar cell performance with new surface structure and wide band gap carrier selective layers
Dönerçark, Ergi; Turan, Raşit; Yerci, Selçuk; Department of Micro and Nanotechnology (2021-10-15)
The photovoltaic (PV) industry is dominated by silicon-based solar cells owing to the abundance of silicon and its full-fledged technology. The main road for the PV industry points out to enhance the conversion efficiency of solar cells while decreasing production costs, which is crucial for improving renewable energy market share. The silicon heterojunction solar cells (SHJ) are receiving attention on this road map due to their higher conversion efficiencies, simple process flow, and low-temperature fabric...
Realization of Concentrated Photovoltaic Module Based on Horizontally Staggered Light Guide
Turan, Raşit (2018-06-01)
Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) systems have proven to be an important alternative to conventional crystalline silicon and thin film photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion systems. In CPV systems, lenses or mirrors are used to collect sunlight from a large area and to focus it onto a small area of a high efficiency photovoltaic cell. In this paper, we report the realization of a new CPV concentrator that is based on a horizontally staggered light guide system with a medium concentration level. The optical comp...
OPTIMIZATION OF EMITTER LAYER IN N-TYPE BIFACIAL CRYSTALLINE SOLAR CELL
Salimi, Yasaman; Turan, Raşit; Ünalan, Hüsnü Emrah; Department of Micro and Nanotechnology (2022-5-09)
P-type solar cells currently hold most of the market share in industrial solar cell fabrication statistics. NREL's highest efficiency record for p-type crystalline perc cells is 22.8%. However, there is an ever-increasing interest in n-type wafers due to the many advantages they have against p-type cells. According to the ITRPV's estimation, the n-type cell structures will be taking half the industry's share by 2031. Compared to p-type cells, n-type cells yield better efficiency and lifetime values and are ...
Citation Formats
E. Özmen, “INVESTIGATION OF SCREEN-PRINTED AND EVAPORATED METAL CONTACTS ON BORON IMPLANTED EMITTER,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2021.