This study focuses on the implications of a high reverse bias breakdown in silicon heterojunction cells (SHJ). In relevant literature, there is a lack of explicit investigation which compares high breakdown voltage cells (commonly SHJ) to low breakdown voltage cells (commonly silicon homojunctions) in an installation setting. In addition, their relationship with shading and how they react with bypass diodes are also not very prevalent. Therefore, my project dives into how shading impacts a string of high breakdown voltage cells and a string of low breakdown voltage cells, as well as how those cells interact with a bypass diode. In order to conduct this investigation, I used the simulation software LTSpice XVII to create an accurate simulation model of a SHJ cell with a 21 V reverse breakdown voltage. With this cell model, I strung 10 cells together, and varied the shading on a single cell while measuring the string’s output current, voltage, and power. Next, I attached a bypass diode to the shaded cell, and continued to increase the number of cells attached to the bypass diode while continuing to examine the string’s output. Once I gathered this data, I modified the original cell model to have a lower reverse breakdown voltage of 5 V. From here, I strung 10 cells together again, and repeated the same measurements from the 21 V string. Upon completing these measurements, I found that the SHJ cells were in fact harder to force into reverse bias than the cells with the lower reverse breakdown voltage, suggesting that solar installation owners should consider transitioning to SHJ-based modules. When bypass diodes are being considered, my results demonstrated that heavy shading (about 65% and higher) was required for the bypass diodes to have an observable impact on the string’s power output. Therefore, owners should consider how severe the shading their installation may receive before investing in bypass diodes. If owners do find the need for the bypass diodes, my findings also show that the diodes should be used sparingly and in a compromise with output power and cost.

Interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar cells have achieved the highest single junction silicon wafer-based solar cell power conversion efficiencies reported to date. This thesis is about the fabrication of a high-efficiency silicon heterojunction IBC solar cell for potential use as the bottom cell for a 3-terminal lattice-matched dilute-nitride Ga (In)NP(As)/Si monolithic tandem solar cell. An effective fabrication process has been developed and the process challenges related to open circuit voltage (Voc), series resistance (Rs), and fill factor (FF) are experimentally analyzed. While wet etching, the sample lost the initial passivation, and by changing the etchant solution and passivation process, the voltage at maximum power recovered to an initial value of over 710 mV before metallization. The factors reducing the series resistance loss in IBC cells were also studied. One of these factors was the Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) sputtering parameters, which impact the conductivity of the ITO layer and transport across the a-Si:H/ITO interface. For the standard recipe, the chamber pressure was 3.5 mTorr with no oxygen partial pressure, and the thickness of the ITO layer in contact with the a-Si:H layers, was optimized to 150 nm. The patterning method for the metal contacts and final annealing also change the contact resistance of the base and emitter stack layers. The final annealing step is necessary to recover the sputtering damage; however, the higher the annealing time the higher the final IBC series resistance. The best efficiency achieved was 19.3% (Jsc = 37 mA/cm2, Voc = 691 mV, FF = 71.7%) on 200 µm thick 1-15 Ω-cm n-type CZ C-Si with a designated area of 4 cm2.

In this dissertation, the nanofabrication process is characterized for fabrication of nanostructure on surface of silicon and gallium phosphide using silica nanosphere lithography (SNL) and metal assisted chemical etching (MACE) process. The SNL process allows fast process time and well defined silica nanosphere monolayer by spin-coating process after mixing N,N-dimethyl-formamide (DMF) solvent. The MACE process achieves the high aspect ratio structure fabrication using the reaction between metal and wet chemical. The nanostructures are fabricated on Si surface for enhanced light management, but, without proper surface passivation those gains hardly impact the performance of the solar cell. The surface passivation of nanostructures is challenging, not only due to larger surface areas and aspect ratios, but also has a direct result of the nanofabrication processes. In this research, the surface passivation of silicon nanostructures is improved by modifying the silica nanosphere lithography (SNL) and the metal assisted chemical etching (MACE) processes, frequently used to fabricate nanostructures. The implementation of a protective silicon oxide layer is proposed prior to the lithography process to mitigate the impact of the plasma etching during the SNL. Additionally, several adhesion layers are studied, chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni) and titanium (Ti) with gold (Au), used in the MACE process. The metal contamination is one of main damage and Ti makes the mitigation of metal contamination. Finally, a new chemical etching step is introduced, using potassium hydroxide at room temperature, to smooth the surface of the nanostructures after the MACE process. This chemical treatment allows to improve passivation by surface area control and removing surface defects. In this research, I demonstrate the Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) passivation on nanostructure using atomic layer deposition (ALD) process. 10nm of Al2O3 layer makes effective passivation on nanostructure with optimized post annealing in forming gas (N2/H2) environment. However, 10nm thickness is not suitable for hetero structure because of carrier transportation. For carrier transportation, ultrathin Al2O3 (≤ 1nm) layer is used for passivation, but effective passivation is not achieved because of insufficient hydrogen contents. This issue is solved to use additional ultrathin SiO2 (1nm) below Al2O3 layer and hydrogenation from doped a-Si:H. Moreover, the nanostructure is creased on gallium phosphide (GaP) by SNL and MACE process. The fabrication process is modified by control of metal layer and MACE solution.

Crystalline silicon covers more than 85% of the global photovoltaics industry and has sustained a nearly 30% year-over-year growth rate. Continued cost and capital expenditure (CAPEX) reductions are needed to sustain this growth. Using thin silicon wafers well below the current industry standard of 160 µm can reduce manufacturing cost, CAPEX, and levelized cost of electricity. Additionally, thinner wafers enable more flexible and lighter module designs, making them more compelling in market segments like building-integrated photovoltaics, portable power, aerospace, and automotive industries. Advanced architectures and superior surface passivation schemes are needed to enable the use of very thin silicon wafers. Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) and SHJ with interdigitated back contact solar cells have demonstrated open-circuit voltages surpassing 720 mV and the potential to surpass 25% conversion efficiency. These factors have led to an increasing interest in exploring SHJ solar cells on thin wafers. In this work, the passivation capability of the thin intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon layer is improved by controlling the deposition temperature and the silane-to-hydrogen dilution ratio. An effective way to parametrize surface recombination is by using surface saturation current density and a very low surface saturation density is achieved on textured wafers for wafer thicknesses ranging between 40 and 180 µm which is an order of magnitude lesser compared to the prevalent industry standards. Implied open-circuit voltages over 760 mV were accomplished on SHJ structures deposited on n-type silicon wafers with thicknesses below 50 µm. An analytical model is also described for a better understanding of the variation of the recombination fractions for varying substrate thicknesses. The potential of using very thin wafers is also established by manufacturing SHJ solar cells, using industrially pertinent processing steps, on 40 µm thin standalone wafers while achieving maximum efficiency of 20.7%. It is also demonstrated that 40 µm thin SHJ solar cells can be manufactured using these processes on large areas. An analysis of the percentage contribution of current, voltage, and resistive losses are also characterized for the SHJ devices fabricated in this work for varying substrate thicknesses.

Unlike conventional solar cells, modern high efficiency passivated contacts solar cells like silicon heterojunction (SHJ) cells have excellent surface passivation and use high bulk lifetime wafers which increase the operating injection level of these devices. These solar cell architectures can benefit from having lower doped substrates, with undoped solar cells becoming an attractive option. There has been very limited literature on high bulk resistivity substrates (>>10 Ωcm). This thesis work provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential of high resistivity/undoped substrates for high performance and more reliable silicon solar cells by demonstrating the results from modeling as well as characterization of SHJ solar cells fabricated with high resistivity/undoped substrates under real-world illumination and temperature conditions that the cells/modules experience in the field. In this work, the results from the analytical model demonstrated the effects of various defects, variation in doping and temperature on the performance of silicon solar cells. Experimentally, SHJ cells with bulk resistivities in the range of 1 Ωcm to >15k Ωcm were fabricated, and cell efficiencies over 20% were measured at standard testing conditions (STC) across the entire range of bulk resistivities. The illumination response (0.1-1 sun) and temperature coefficients (25-90 °C) were shown to be independent of the bulk resistivity. No light induced degradation was observed in the n-type SHJ cells of all resistivity ranges whereas high resistivity p-type SHJ cells showed less degradation compared to that of commercial resistivity range (<10 Ωcm). Very high reverse breakdown voltages (over 1 kV) were demonstrated for SHJ cells fabricated with high resistivity wafers. Using simulation, the importance of having cells in the modules with breakdown voltage higher than the series string voltage for safe and reliable operation of the photovoltaic (PV) system was highlighted. The ingot yield can be improved by moving towards high resistivity ranges to manufacture high efficiency reliable solar cells by utilizing the entire ingot and eliminating the need to adhere to narrow resistivity range. Thus, the novel findings from this work can have profound impact on ingot and module manufacturing resulting in significant cost savings as well as improvement in the system reliability.

An ongoing effort in the photovoltaic (PV) industry is to reduce the major manufacturing cost components of solar cells, the great majority of which are based on crystalline silicon (c-Si). This includes the substitution of screenprinted silver (Ag) cell contacts with alternative copper (Cu)-based contacts, usually applied with plating. Plated Cu contact schemes have been under study for many years with only minor traction in industrial production. One of the more commonly-cited barriers to the adoption of Cu-based contacts for photovoltaics is long-term reliability, as Cu is a significant contaminant in c-Si, forming precipitates that degrade performance via degradation of diode character and reduction of minority carrier lifetime. Cu contamination from contacts might cause degradation during field deployment if Cu is able to ingress into c-Si. Furthermore, Cu contamination is also known to cause a form of light-induced degradation (LID) which further degrades carrier lifetime when cells are exposed to light.

Prior literature on Cu-contact reliability tended to focus on accelerated testing at the cell and wafer level that may not be entirely replicative of real-world environmental stresses in PV modules. This thesis is aimed at advancing the understanding of Cu-contact reliability from the perspective of quasi-commercial modules under more realistic stresses. In this thesis, c-Si solar cells with Cu-plated contacts are fabricated, made into PV modules, and subjected to environmental stress in an attempt to induce hypothesized failure modes and understand any new vulnerabilities that Cu contacts might introduce. In particular, damp heat stress is applied to conventional, p-type c-Si modules and high efficiency, n-type c-Si heterojunction modules. I present evidence of Cu-induced diode degradation that also depends on PV module materials, as well as degradation unrelated to Cu, and in either case suggest engineering solutions to the observed degradation. In a forensic search for degradation mechanisms, I present novel evidence of Cu outdiffusion from contact layers and encapsulant-driven contact corrosion as potential key factors. Finally, outdoor exposures to light uncover peculiarities in Cu-plated samples, but do not point to especially serious vulnerabilities.

In this dissertation, I investigate the electronic properties of two important silicon(Si)-based heterojunctions 1) hydrogenated amorphous silicon/crystalline silicon (a-Si:H/c-Si) which has already been commercialized in Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin-layer (HIT) cells and 2) gallium phosphide/silicon (GaP/Si) which has been suggested to be a good candidate for replacing a-Si:H/c-Si in HIT cells in order to boost the HIT cell’s efficiency.

In the first part, the defect states of amorphous silicon (a-Si) and a-Si:H material are studied using density functional theory (DFT). I first employ simulated annealing using molecular dynamics (MD) to create stable configurations of a-Si:H, and then analyze the atomic and electronic structure to investigate which structural defects interact with H, and how the electronic structure changes with H addition. I find that H atoms decrease the density of mid-gap states and increase the band gap of a-Si by binding to Si atoms with strained bonds. My results also indicate that Si atoms with strained bonds creates high-localized orbitals in the mobility gap of a-Si, and the binding of H atoms to them can dramatically decrease their degree of localization.



In the second part, I explore the effect of the H binding configuration on the electronic properties of a-Si:H/c-Si heterostructure using density functional theory studies of models of the interface between a-Si:H and c-Si. The electronic properties from DFT show that depending on the energy difference between configurations, the electronic properties are sensitive to the H binding configurations.

In the last part, I examine the electronic structure of GaP/Si(001) heterojunctions and the effect of hydrogen H passivation at the interface in comparison to interface mixing, through DFT calculations. My calculations show that due to the heterovalent mismatch nature of the GaP/Si interface, there is a high density of localized states at the abrupt GaP/Si interface due to the excess charge associated with heterovalent bonding, as reported elsewhere. I find that the addition of H leads to additional bonding at the interface which mitigates the charge imbalance, and greatly reduces the density of localized states, leading to a nearly ideal heterojunction.

Recent technology advancements in photovoltaics have enabled crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells to establish outstanding photoconversion efficiency records. Remarkable progresses in research and development have been made both on the silicon feedstock quality as well as the technology required for surface passivation, the two dominant sources of performance loss via recombination of photo-generated charge carriers within advanced solar cell architectures.

As these two aspects of the solar cell framework improve, the need for a thorough analysis of their respective contribution under varying operation conditions has emerged along with challenges related to the lack of sensitivity of available characterization techniques. The main objective of my thesis work has been to establish a deep understanding of both “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” recombination processes that govern performance in high-quality silicon absorbers. By studying each recombination mechanism as a function of illumination and temperature, I strive to identify the lifetime limiting defects and propose a path to engineer the ultimate silicon solar cell.

This dissertation presents a detailed description of the experimental procedure required to deconvolute surface recombination contributions from bulk recombination contributions when performing lifetime spectroscopy analysis. This work proves that temperature- and injection-dependent lifetime spectroscopy (TIDLS) sensitivity can be extended to impurities concentrations down to 109 cm-3, orders of magnitude below any other characterization technique available today. A new method for the analysis of TIDLS data denominated Defect Parameters Contour Mapping (DPCM) is presented with the aim of providing a visual and intuitive tool to identify the lifetime limiting impurities in silicon material. Surface recombination velocity results are modelled by applying appropriate approaches from literature to our experimentally evaluated data, demonstrating for the first time their capability to interpret temperature-dependent data. In this way, several new results are obtained which solve long disputed aspects of surface passivation mechanisms. Finally, we experimentally evaluate the temperature-dependence of Auger lifetime and its impact on a theoretical intrinsically limited solar cell. These results decisively point to the need for a new Auger lifetime parameterization accounting for its temperature-dependence, which would in turn help understand the ultimate theoretical efficiency limit for a solar cell under real operation conditions.

The objective of this thesis is to achieve a detailed understanding of the loss mechanisms in SHJ solar cells. The working principles of these cells and what affects the cell operation, e.g. the IV characteristics at the maximum power point (MPP) and the correspondingly ll factor (FF) are investigated. Dierent loss sources are analyzed separately, and the weight of each in the total loss at the MPP are evaluated. The total series resistance is measured and then compared with the value obtained through summation over each of its components. In other words, series resistance losses due to recombination, vertical and lateral carrier transport, metalization, etc, are individually evaluated, and then by adding all these components together, the total loss is calculated. The concept of ll factor and its direct dependence on the loss mechanisms at the MPP of the device is explained, and its sensitivity to nearly every processing step of the cell fabrication is investigated. This analysis provides a focus lens to identify the main source of losses in SHJ solar cells and pave the path for further improvements in cell efficiency.

In this thesis, we provide a detailed understanding of the FF concept; we explain how it can be directly measured; how it can be calculated and what expressions can better approximate its value and under what operating conditions. The relation between FF and cell operating condition at the MPP is investigated. We separately analyzed the main FF sources of losses including recombination, sheet resistance, contact resistance and metalization. We study FF loss due to recombination and its separate components which include the Augur, radiative and SRH recombination is investigated. We study FF loss due to contact resistance and its separate components which include the contact resistance of dierent interfaces, e.g. between the intrinsic and doped a-Si layers, TCO and a-Si layers. We also study FF loss due to lateral transport and its components that including the TCO sheet resistance, the nger and the busbars resistances.

Achieving high efficiency in solar cells requires optimal photovoltaics materials for light absorption and as with any electrical device—high-quality contacts. Essentially, the contacts separate the charge carriers—holes at one terminal and electrons at the other—extracting them to an external circuit. For this purpose, the development of passivating and carrier-selective contacts that enable low interface defect density and efficient carrier transport is critical for making high-efficiency solar cells. The recent record-efficiency n-type silicon cells with hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) contacts have demonstrated the usefulness of passivating and carrier-selective contacts. However, the use of a-Si:H contacts should not be limited in just n-type silicon cells.

In the present work, a-Si:H contacts for crystalline silicon and cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells are developed. First, hydrogen-plasma-processsed a-Si:H contacts are used in n-type Czochralski silicon cell fabrication. Hydrogen plasma treatment is used to increase the Si-H bond density of a-Si:H films and decrease the dangling bond density at the interface, which leads to better interface passivation and device performance, and wider temperature-processing window of n-type silicon cells under full spectrum (300–1200 nm) illumination. In addition, thickness-varied a-Si:H contacts are studied for n-type silicon cells under the infrared spectrum (700–1200 nm) illumination, which are prepared for silicon-based tandem applications.

Second, the a-Si:H contacts are applied to commercial-grade p-type silicon cells, which have much lower bulk carrier lifetimes than the n-type silicon cells. The approach is using gettering and bulk hydrogenation to improve the p-type silicon bulk quality, and then applying a-Si:H contacts to enable excellent surface passivation and carrier transport. This leads to an open-circuit voltage of 707 mV in p-type Czochralski silicon cells, and of 702 mV, the world-record open-circuit voltage in p-type multi-crystalline silicon cells.

Finally, CdTe cells with p-type a-Si:H hole-selective contacts are studied. As a proof of concept, p-type a-Si:H contacts enable achieving the highest reported open-circuit voltages (1.1 V) in mono-crystalline CdTe devices. A comparative study of applying p-type a-Si:H contacts in poly-crystalline CdTe solar cells is performed, resulting in absolute voltage gain of 53 mV over using the standard tellurium contacts.