High efficiency n-type PERT and PERL solar cells
Jan Benick, Bernd Steinhauser, Ralph Müller, Jonas Bartsch, Mathias Kamp, Andrew Mondon, Armin
Richter, Martin Hermle, Stefan Glunz
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg, Baden Wuerttemberg, 79110, Germany
Abstract — n-type PERT and PERL structures both offer a a) Al2O3/SiNx Metal
high efficiency potential. In this work we applied ion
implantation for the realization of both the emitter and the BSF
of high-efficiency PERT and PERL structures and laser processes
for local BSF formation showing efficiency benchmarks for those p+
in principle industrially feasible technologies. For a fully ion n-Si
n+
implanted PERT solar cell we reached efficiencies up to 22.7%,
showing that even at this high level no residual implantation
damage is left and the Voc is limited by the profiles themselves. Rear side passivation Metal
For the PERL structure we applied the PassDop process using
two different passivation layer systems (based on SiCx and SiNx). b) Al2O3/SiNx Metal
With this laser based process we were able to reach conversion
efficiencies up to 23.2%, showing that the laser doping process is
as efficient as a PERL rear side realized by photolithography. To
prove the industrial feasibility of these high-efficiency solar cell p+
n-Si
concepts we applied Ni plating as front side emitter metallization n+
on a PassDop solar cell featuring a boron implanted emitter. For
this cell type we were able to reach an efficiency of 21.7% in a
first prove of principle batch. Rear side passivation Metal
Index Terms —n-type, high-efficiency, implantation, laser
Figure 1 Schematic drawing of two high-efficincy n-type
solar cell structures: a) PERT solar cell, b) PERL solar cell.
I. INTRODUCTION
n-type PERT and PERL solar cells structures both offer a high II. ION IMPLANTATION
efficiency potential. However, industrially feasible ways for
Ion implantation is known for very precise control and
the fabrication of these high efficiency devices are needed.
reproducibility of impurity doping and thus has been
For the doping of the emitter as well as the full area and the
established as the standard doping process in CMOS
local BSF processes need to be developed which allow for an
fabrication. In photovoltaics ion implantation is an interesting
easy single side processing as well as a reproducible, damage
alternative for tube furnace diffusion processes. Ion
free and high quality fabrication of the doped areas.
implantation inherently is a single side process which can be
For the front side boron emitter as well as the full area BSF of
easily masked by shadow masks. No doped glass (PSG, BSG)
a PERT solar cell, ion implantation has been identified as a
is formed during the doping process. Especially for the
promising technology, as the process itself is truly single
realization of boron doped areas, where the diffusion process
sided and no doped glass is needed [1-3]. For the formation of
is known to be more complicated than for phosphorus, ion
the local BSF we developed a laser based process using a
implantation might be a promising option. In several
doped passivation layer [4].
publications it has been shown, that the damage introduced
To achieve highest efficiencies, metallization technologies
during implantation can be removed by an annealing step,
beyond screen printing are needed. Using plated contacts,
leading to emitter saturation current densities below
many of the so far existing challenges for metallizing high-
10 fA/cm2 on both phosphorus and boron doped areas
efficiency n-type devices can be overcome. As plated contacts
respectively [5].
have many similarities with evaporated contacts, the
For the doping profiles applied for the PERT solar cells (see
efficiency potential of this technology is quite high and
Figure 2) the intrinsic J0e, i.e. the J0e which is caused by
industrial implementation is possible.
intrinsic losses within the profile, has been calculated with
In this paper the recent developments in the field of high-
EDNA [6]. The calculated J0e, taking into account the
efficiency n-type solar cells will be given, with the main focus
respective surface recombination velocity taken from diffused
on ion implantation, the PassDop process as well the
references, shows a perfect match with the measured data.
combination of ion implantation, PassDop and a front side
metallization based on plating.
1020 Table II: Saturation current density of the respective parts of
Boron Emitter the fully implanted PERT solar cell. The metalized fraction is
Phosphorus BSF
75 /sq 1.1 % for the front side and 0.7% for the rear side (point
1019
contacts with a diameter 20 µm of and a pitch of 250 µm).
170 /sq
Doping [cm-3]
Emitter BSF Metal Metal rear Bulk Total
1018
front
J0e [fA/cm2] 12 29 16 4 10 71
1017
The high quality of the fully ion implanted PERT solar cell is
also confirmed in the high quantum efficiency shown in
1016
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 Figure 3.
Depth [µm]
100
Figure 2 Doping profiles of the fully implanted PERT solar
cell.
80
2
Table I: Fully implanted PERT solar cell (2x2 cm ).
EQE, IQE, R [%]
60
Cell Voc Jsc FF pFF η IQE
type mV mA/cm2 % % % EQE
40 Reflection
PERT 691 40.9 80.2 83.8 22.7*
*
Certified by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab
20
Fully implanted PERT solar cells featuring the doping profiles
shown in Figure 2 have been fabricated. The basic structure of 0
400 600 800 1000 1200
the cells is shown in Figure 1a. After front side texturing the Wavelength [nm]
cells received the implantation processes for emitter and BSF.
For the annealing of the implanted profiles a common high Figure 3 EQE and IQE of the fully implanted PERT solar
temperature step has been used. The oxide grown during this cell.
step also has been used as the rear side passivation. The front
side boron emitter was passivated by a stack consisting of a III. PASSDOP
thin Al2O3 (10 nm, PA-ALD), SiNx (50 nm, PECVD) and
MgF2 (100 nm, evaporation) to form a double layer In order to achieve high conversion efficiencies a passivated
antireflection coating (DARC). The contact openings were rear side has to be applied. The rear side structure featuring
formed with photolithography and the front and rear side the highest efficiency potential is the PERL structure with
metal was evaporated (front: Ti/Pd/Ag, rear:Al). The front only a local BSF underneath the rear side contact points. With
side contacts were thickened by an Ag plating step. the “PassDop” concept shown in Figure 4, an elegant way for
the realization of such a structure has been shown [4].
With these laboratory scale fully implanted high-efficiency
PERT solar cells we were able to achieve a conversion n base n base n base n base
efficiency of 22.7% (see Table I). The cells show a very high
Voc of 691 mV, limited mainly by rear side recombination due
to the BSF doping profile. For the applied doping profiles the a) b) c) d)
Voc level of 691 mV achieved for the PERT solar cell is close Figure 4 Schematic of the PassDop process. On top of the
to the theoretical limit of 695 mV that can be obtained with bare rear side (a) a phosphorus doped dielectric layer is
the applied doping profiles (see Table II). For a uniformly deposited (b). In a subsequent laser process the dielectric layer
doped BSF there is always a compromise between contacting is locally opened (c) and the dopant is driven into the silicon.
and recombination at the metal contacts and the passivated In a last step a metal layer is deposited (d).
regions, i.e. a certain surface concentration is required to
allow for an efficient ohmic rear side contact. For the dielectric passivation we apply two different
approaches, i) a-SiCx:P based layer system and ii) a-SiNx:P
based layer system. The properties of the resulting doping
profiles for the local BSF after the laser process are given in
Table III. As can be seen, with both layers appropriate BSF
doping with sheet resistances ≤ 30 Ω/sq and a surface
concentration >31019cm-3can be reached.
high fill factors >80.5% also show that a good contact can be
Table III: Properties of the local BSF for the a-SiCx and a- formed to the local doping at the rear side.
SiNx based PassDop layers respectively Table IV: PERL solar cell with different rear side PassDop
Rsheet Nsurface Depth layers.
[Ω/sq] [cm-3] [µm] Material Voc Jsc FF pFF η
a-SiCx:P ~15 ~81019 ~3.5 [mV] [mA/cm2] [%] [%] [%]
a-SiNx:P ~30 ~31019 ~3 Cz,
SiCx:P 699 41.3 80.5 84.0 23.2*
1.7 Ωcm
FZ,
SiNx:P 693 40.6 80.8 83.5 22.8*
10
-2
0.5 Ωcm
*
Certified by Fraunhofer ISE CalLab
The high quality of the fully ion implanted PERT solar cell is
also confirmed in the high quantum efficiency shown in
Effective lifetime [s]
Figure 6
-3
10
100
SiCx:P a-SiCx:P
SiNx:P EQE
IQE
n-type, 1 cm
-4 Reflexion
10 EQE, IQE [%]
10
14
10
15
10
16 a-SiNx:P
-3 50 EQE
Excess carrier density [cm ]
IQE
Reflexion
Figure 5 Measured effective lifetimes for the SiCx and SiNx
based PassDop layers, respectively.
Both layers exhibit excellent surface passivation properties.
As can be seen in Figure 5 effective lifetimes in the range of 0
3 ms can be reached on 1 Ω cm n-type silicon for both layers 400 600 800 1000 1200
(Seff < 5cm/s), making them perfectly suited for the application Wavelength [nm]
as the rear side passivation of a PERL type solar cell.
Both layers have been applied at the device level, i.e. high- Figure 6 EQE and IQE of the a-SiCx:P and the a-SiNx:P based
efficiency laboratory type solar cells (area: 4 cm2). The basic PassDop solar cell.
structure of the cells is shown in Figure 1b. After texturing
and boron emitter diffusion on the front side the solar cell Therefore the PassDop technology is a quite promizing
surfaces are passivated. A stack consisting of a thin Al2O3 approach for the fabrication of high-efficiency n-type solar
(10 nm, PA-ALD) and SiNx (60 nm, PECVD) is applied for cells.
the front side emitter, the rear side is passivated by the
PassDop stack based either on the a-SiCx:P or the a-SiNx:P
(PECVD). After surface passivation the front side contacts IV. PLATING
were realized by photolithography and evaporating a seed Low resistivity contacts on boron emitters are hard to
layer of Ti/Pd/Ag. In the next step the rear side contact achieve by standard printing, especially for low boron surface
opening as well as the local doping was realized by a laser doping concentrations as applied for the cells show in the
process before the rear side contacts were formed by previous sections. Also a voltage reduction of ~30 mV by
evaporation of Al. As a last step the front side contacts were currently available printing paste generation has been reported
thickened by plating of Ag. [7,8]. Consequently, the metal-semiconductor contact for the
The results of the I-V measurements are summarized in highest efficiencies on boron emitters might be based on
Table IV. As can be seen, with both approaches very high plating.
conversion efficiencies up to 23.2% for the SiCx and 22.8% Plated nickel as contacting material has been shown to
for the SiNx based PassDop were reached so far. allow comparable performance to evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag on
The high Voc level that has been reached for both approaches lowly doped phosphorous and boron emitters [9,10]. It can be
proves the excellent rear side passivation of the applied reinforced by plated copper and tin to form a silver-free,
dielectric layers based on SiCx and SiNx respectively. The highly conductive and industrially feasible contact system.
In principle, this contact system is quite similar to the high 22.7% could be reached, which is now mainly limited by the
efficiency laboratory approach. In both cases, the formation of profile shape itself. For the laser based PassDop process
a silicide is realized to adjust contact properties by contact efficiencies up to 23.2% have been shown.
formation at relatively low temperatures (250-450°C), Combining both ion implanted emitter with the PassDop
allowing for temperature sensitive passivation layers. approach at the rear and applying Ni/Cu plated front contacts
The Ni/Cu/Sn plating process has been applied to SiNx:P we were able to realise a silver free, strictly single side
based PassDop solar cells featuring a boron implanted emitter processed high efficiency cell with an efficiency of 21.7%.
with a profile slightly higher doped (Rsheet ~90 Ω/sq) as the
one shown in Figure 2. The 15 µm front contact opening was REFERENCES
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