SEM and specific contact resistance analysis of screen-printed Ag contacts formed by fire-through process on the shallow emitters of silicon solar cell

The SEM and specific contact resistance measurements of the Ag metal contact formed by applying a fire-through process on the shallow emitter region of the silicon solar cell have been investigated. The metal contact consists of screen-printed Ag paste patterned on the silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) deposited over the n⁺-Si emitter region of the solar cell. The sintering step consists of a rapid firing step at 800 °C or above in air ambient. This is followed by an annealing step at 450 °C in nitrogen ambient. It enables to drive the Ag metal paste onto the Si₃N₄ layer and facilitates the formation of an Ag metal/p-Si contact structure. It serves as the top metallization for the screen-printed silicon solar cell. The SEM measurement shows that sintering of the Ag metal paste at 800 °C or above causes the Ag metal to firmly coalesce with the underlying n⁺-Si surface. A thin layer of conductive glassy layer is also presents at the interface of the Ag metal and n⁺-Si surface. The electrical quality of the contact structure was characterized by measuring the specific contact resistance, ρ _c (in Ω-cm²) using the iteration technique based on the power loss calculation for the solar cell. It shows that best value of ρ _c  = 2.53 × 10⁻⁵ Ω-cm² is estimated for the Ag metal contact sintered at temperature above 800 °C. This value of ρ _c is two orders of magnitude lower than the typical value of ρ _c  = 3 × 10⁻³ Ω-cm² reported previously for the Ag contacts of the solar cell. Such low value of ρ _c for the Ag metal contacts indicates that fire-through process results in excellent ohmic properties. The plot of the ρ _c versus impurity doping level (N _s ) shows that measured value of the ρ _c follows a linear relationship with the N _s as predicted by the theory for the heavily doped semiconductor surface. Hence, carrier injection across the Schottky barrier height is quite appropriate to explain the observed ohmic properties of the Ag metal contacts on the n⁺-Si surface of the silicon solar cell.

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Specific contact resistance measurements of the screen-printed Ag thick film contacts in the silicon solar cells by three-point probe methodology and TLM method

The specific contact resistance of the screen-printed Ag contacts in the silicon solar cells has been investigated by applying two independent test methodologies such as three-point probe (TPP) and well-known transfer length model (TLM) test structure respectively. This paper presents some comparative results obtained with these two measurement techniques for the screen-printed Ag contacts formed on the porous silicon antireflection coating (ARC) in the crystalline silicon solar cells. The contact structure consists of thick-film Ag metal contacts patterned on the top of the etched porous silicon surface. Five different contact formation temperatures ranging from 725 to 825 °C for few minutes in air ambient followed by a short time annealing step at about 450 °C in nitrogen ambient was applied to the test samples in order to study the specific contact resistance of the screen-printed Ag metal contact structure. The specific contact resistance of the Ag metal contacts extracted based on the TPP as well as TLM test methodologies has been compared and verified. It shows that the extraction procedure based on the TPP method results in specific contact resistance, ρ _c  = 2.15 × 10⁻⁶ Ω-cm² indicating that screen-printed Ag contacts has excellent ohmic properties whereas in the case of TLM method, the best value of the specific contact resistance was found to be about ρ _c  = 8.34 × 10⁻⁵ Ω-cm². These results indicate that the ρ _c value extracted for the screen-printed Ag contacts by TPP method is one order of magnitude lower than that of the corresponding value of the ρ _c extracted by TLM method. The advantages and limitations of each of these techniques for quantitatively evaluating the specific contact resistance of the screen-printed Ag contacts are also discussed.     

Effect of dispersibility of silver powders in conductive paste on microstructure of screen-printed front contacts and electrical performance of crystalline silicon solar cells

Effect of dispersibility of silver powders in conductive paste on microstructure of screen-printed front contacts and electrical performance of crystalline silicon solar cells was investigated. Two different dispersed degree silver powders were experimented. It is found that the dispersibility of the silver powders strongly affects the microstructure of thick film and electrical performance of solar cells and highly dispersed silver powders can form even compact thick film and exhibit higher open-circuit voltage (V _oc ), short-circuit current (I _sc ), shunt resistance (R _sh ), maximum power (P _max ), optimum operating voltage (V _mp ), optimum operating current (I _mp ), fill factor (FF) and photoelectric conversion efficiency (Eff) than seriously agglomerated silver powders under otherwise identical conditions.     

Power loss calculation as a reliable methodology to assess the ohmic losses of the planar ohmic contacts formed on the photovoltaic devices

The front grid contact is particularly important and requires a low contact resistance which represents the resistance associated with the barrier at the interface of the metal and semiconductor contact structure. Often applied metal contacts are fired at a higher temperature (typically above 700 °C) in air ambient, which produces ohmic contact on both surface of the photovoltaic device. The specific contact resistance is one of the important device parameter on studying the interfacial properties of the metalization system. Therefore, a reliable methodology to assess the ohmic losses of the applied metal contact structure is required. It shows that it is rather simple and reliable to assess the electrical quality of the applied metal contacts by quantifying the total ohmic losses of the solar cell associated with the various resistive components of the solar cell normalized to unit cell area. It has been recently demonstrated that with a new experimental procedure, namely iteration method based on the calculation of power loss (ICPL) associated with the contact resistance of the front Ag thick-film metal contacts, a much reliable value of the specific contact resistance of the order of ≅10⁻⁵ Ω cm² can be extracted for the planar ohmic contacts. In this work, the specific contact resistance of the planar ohmic contacts formed on the heavily doped n⁺ region of the solar cells were studied on large number of finished cells by two independent methods: (i) standard three-point probe (TPP) and (ii) iteration technique based on the calculation of the power loss (ICPL) associated with the contact resistance of the front Ag contacts of the solar cell normalized to unit cell area. It shows that the value of specific contact resistance measured by both methods are desirably much lower than the expected value of 10⁻³ Ω  cm² for the screen-printed Ag metal contacts of the photovoltaic cells used for the A.M. 1.5 applications. Using the iteration, each resistive components of the solar cell normalized to unit cell area were directly evaluated. It is shown that by combining the measurements of specific contact resistance of the planar ohmic contacts and ohmic losses of the cell, it gives a direct and non-destructive diagnostic tool to qualitatively check the electrical quality of the applied Ag metal contacts.

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Specific contact resistance and metallurgical process of the silver-based paste for making ohmic contact structure on the porous silicon/p-Si surface of the silicon solar cell

Porous silicon has been considered as a promising optoelectronic material for developing a variety of optoelectronic devices and sensors. In the present study, the electrical properties and metallurgical process of the screen-printed Ag metallization formed on the porous silicon surface of the silicon solar cell have been investigated. The contact structure consists of thick-film Ag metal contact patterned on the top of the porous silicon surface. The sintering process consists of a rapid firing step at 750–825 °C in air ambient. It results in the formation of a nearly perfect contact structure between the Ag metal and porous silicon/p-Si structure that forms the top metalization for the screen-printed silicon solar cells. The SEM picture shows that Ag metal firmly coalesces with the silicon surface with a relatively smooth interfacial morphology. This implies that high temperature fire-through step has not introduced any signs of adverse effect of junction puncture or excessive Ag indiffusion, etc. The three-point probe (TPP) method was applied to estimate the specific contact resistance, ρ _c (Ω-cm²) of the contact structure. The TPP measurement shows that contact structure has excellent ohmic properties with ρ _c = 1.2 × 10⁻⁶ Ω-cm² when the metal contact sintered at 825 °C. This value of the specific contact resistance is almost three orders of magnitude lower than the corresponding value of the ρ _c = 7.35 × 10⁻³ Ω-cm² obtained for the contact structure sintered at 750 °C. This improvement in the specific contact resistance indicates that with increase in the sintering temperature, the barrier properties of the contact structure at the interface of the Ag metal and porous silicon structure improved which in turn results a lower specific contact resistance of the contact structure.     

The effects of Ge content on the microstructure and specific contact resistance of solid-state NiAuGe/ZrB2/Au ohmic contacts to n-InGaAs

The Ge thickness, x, of NiAuGe(5 nm/45 nm/xnm)/ZrB₂(50 nm)/Au(20 nm) ohmic contacts to n-lnGaAs was varied between 0 and 20 nm. The microstructures of these contacts, after annealing at 270°C, were investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlated with the respective specific contact resistances. In the absence of Ge, a Ni-Ga-As phase was formed at the metal-semiconductor interface and the specific contact resistance was high (0.63 mm). When thicknesses of x = 10 nm or x = 15 nm of Ge were added, Ni-Ge-As phases were observed, but they were replaced by AuGeAs and NiGe when x = 20 nm. The specific contact resistance was a minimum (0.11 mm) for this composition. Ge was clearly beneficial for ohmic-contact formation. The low-temperature I–V characteristics of the contact containing the largest amount of Ge (that is, x = 20 nm) indicated that electron tunnelling through degenerately-Ge-doped regions was not the dominant ohmic mechanism in these contacts.     

Effect of porous silicon stain etched on large area alkaline textured crystalline silicon solar cells

This work shows the effects of porous silicon stain etched on alkaline textured antireflection coatings of large area monocrystalline silicon solar cells. The texturization process has been produced by immersion of the silicon wafers in different carbonate-based solutions. The porous silicon layers were formed by stain etching in a HNO₃/HF aqueous solution before or after the texturization process. We study the effects of different alkaline and acidic solutions and the etching times on the solar cell parameters and the surface reflectance of the device. We have found that the average reflectance of the surface is lowered when the porous etching is combined with the texturization in the alkaline solution. However, the solar cell characteristics are not improved.     

p-GaN表面制备低阻欧姆接触电极的几个关键问题

优良的光电特性使得GaN材料成为当今半导体器件研究领域的热点,但高功函数和低载流子浓度使p-GaN表面难以制备低阻欧姆接触电极、严重妨害了GaN基器件的热稳定性和输出功率.如何制备具有低阻欧姆接触特性的p-GaN电极已成为一个关键的科学和技术问题.探讨了影响p-GaN欧姆接触特性的几个关键因素,如表面预处理工艺、电极材料的选择和厚度、退火工艺等,对此方面的最新进展进行评述和归纳,并提出自己的创新性研究思路.     

Low-temperature sintering properties of the screen-printed silver paste for a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction solar cells

For a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells, low-temperature sintered silver paste is necessary to fabricate the metal electrodes on transparent conductive oxide layer. Here, the thermal characteristic, the conductivity, the adhesion strength on indium tin oxide substrate and the microstructure evolution of the screen-printed low-temperature sintered silver grid were investigated by varying the sintering temperature and the sintering time. The results show that the grid performance is closely related to its microstructure. A relatively high sintering temperature and a long sintering time are beneficial to make the organics in the Ag paste burn out and the adjacent Ag particles coalesce together to be larger ones. As a result, the Ag grid can get a dense microstructure and tightly adhere onto the substrate surface. Thus, low line and contact resistance is achieved. What is more, the evolution of the preferential orientation of Ag particles has some contributions to the improved grid conductivity. Specifically, for the SHJ solar cell fabrication, in order to be compatible with the low-temperature deposition of a-Si:H, a long sintering time larger than 60 min with the sintering temperature in the range of 200–230 °C is preferred to realize high performance Ag electrical contacts.     

Characterization of nanoporous silicon layer to reduce the optical losses of crystalline silicon solar cells

Reduction of optical losses in crystalline silicon solar cells by surface modification is one of the most important issues of silicon photovoltaics. Porous Si layers on the front surface of textured Si substrates have been investigated with the aim of improving the optical losses of the solar cells, because an anti-reflection coating and a surface passivation can be obtained simultaneously in one process. We have demonstrated the feasibility of a very efficient porous Si AR layer, prepared by a simple, cost effective, electrochemical etching method. Silicon p-type CZ (100) oriented wafers were textured by anisotropic etching in sodium carbonate solution. Then, the porous Si layers were formed by electrochemical etching in HF solutions. After that, the properties of porous Si in terms of morphology, structure and reflectance are summarized. The structure of porous Si layers was investigated using SEM. The formation of a nanoporous Si layer on the textured silicon wafer result in a reflectance lower than 5% in the wavelength region from 500 to 900 nm. Such a surface modification allows improving the Si solar cell characteristics. An efficiency of 13.4% is achieved on a monocrystalline silicon solar cell using the electrochemical technique.     

Influence of the front contact barrier height on the Indium Tin Oxide/hydrogenated p-doped amorphous silicon heterojunction solar cells

The band bending at the transparent conductive oxides/hydrogenated p-doped amorphous silicon (p-a-Si:H) interface is one of the most important factors limiting the performances of HIT (Heterojunctions with Intrinsic Thin layers) solar cells. In order to study this effect, a solar cell (Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)/p-a-Si:H/i-polymorphous Si:H/n-doped crystalline silicon (n-c-Si)) simulation, focused on the front contact barrier height, has been performed. The results show that a reduction of the surface potential barrier at the interface ITO/p-layer leads to an increase of the built-in potential, and hence an increase of open circuit voltage and fill factor. We have also observed that the performance of HIT solar cells remains constant above 12nm thickness of the p-layer.     

光照入射角对太阳能电池输出功率的影响

为了研究在自然条件下,光照入射角对太阳能电池实际输出功率的影响,对单晶硅、多晶硅和非晶硅太阳能电池进行了不同倾角和方位角的测试实验,得到了太阳能电池转换效率关于倾角和方位角的对应关系,并用转换效率的变化曲线分析和说明光照入射角对太阳能电池输出功率的影响.     

A detailed study of the series resistance effect on CdS/CdTe solar cells with Cu/Mo back contact

CdS/CdTe thin film solar cells with an area of 1 cm² were obtained and studied in detail. A ZnO buffer layer was deposited by reactive RF-sputtering on commercial ITO substrates. The CdS layer was grown on ZnO also by using RF-sputtering and CdTe thin film was deposited by conventional CSS technique. The chlorination of the solar cells is performed into Freon atmosphere at 400 °C. The CdTe thin film surface was chemically etched by using Br-Methanol solution. The back contact was deposited using RF-sputtering from a pure Cu and Mo targets. The procedure developed in this work led us to make systematically solar cells with good efficiency. However, the series resistance has a high value for an area of 1 cm² (22 Ω cm²). In order to make more detailed study, the solar cell with an area of 1 cm² was divided in a 3 × 3 matrix. A good homogeneity in cell properties is observed and the efficiency increases to more than 11%, fundamentally through decreasing series resistance.     

不同负载对太阳能电池输出功率的影响

利用直流电子负载对太阳能电池进行了恒压、恒流和恒阻三种模式下的测试,得到了太阳能电池的输出功率响应曲线,又用陶瓷电阻进行了恒阻模式下的测试和对比.实验结果表明,太阳能电池的输出特性随不同类型的负载变化趋势基本一致.通过比较得出了在利用直流电子负载进行太阳能电池特性测试时,恒压、恒流模式下的测试结果比较可信,恒阻模式下的测试结果存在突变现象,输出响应存在问题,不推荐使用;而在纯电阻的恒阻模式下,太阳能电池的输出特性与恒压、恒流模式下的测试结果一样可信.     

Application of high mobility transparent conductors to enhance long wavelength transparency of the intermediate solar cell in multi-junction solar cells

High mobility transparent conducting oxide (HMTCO) materials (mobility > 60 cm² V^− 1 s^− 1) have a high transmission over the visible to near infra red wavelength region with resistivity < 2 × 10^− 4 Ω cm. We investigate the application of HMTCO materials as transparent contacts for multi-junction and bifacial solar cells to increase the device NIR transmission. Using the HMTCO materials as front contacts significantly reduces absorption and reflection losses of the solar cells, from 850-1500 nm. The need to develop a low temperature process to prepare HMTCO materials as back contacts in semi-transparent solar cells is also emphasized.     

Enhanced optical absorption and electrical performance of silicon solar cells due to embedding of dielectric nanoparticles and voids in the active absorber region

Dielectric nanoparticles and voids have been embedded in the active silicon layer of standard silicon nitride-coated planar solar cells with a view to decouple the scattering properties of the nano entities (dielectric nanoparticles and voids) from their antireflection properties. However, it was found that complete decoupling between the two is not obtained. Our study shows that the additional reflection losses due to embedding may be partially or fully offset by the enhanced scattering, leading to net increase in absorption inside the solar cell for many embedding configurations depending on the nano entity material, size, area coverage, and depth of embedment. Optical simulation results were then incorporated into the electrical device model to obtain the solar cell parameters. Relative improvement of 7.1% in the efficiency of 20 μm thick solar cell has been obtained for 200 nm radius voids embedded 300 nm deep with 30% coverage. The relative improvement in efficiency is lower (1.9%) for 200 μm cells and higher (27.5%) for 2 μm cells.     

Change of interstrand contact resistance and coupling loss in various prototype ITER NbTi conductors with transverse loading in the Twente Cryogenic Cable Press up to 40,000 cycles

The multistrand NbTi conductors for the Poloidal Field (PF) Coils of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) are subjected to heavy transverse loading due to the Lorentz forces in the coils. The current in the multistage Cable-In-Conduit Conductors (CICC) exceeds 50 kA and the magnetic field reaches up to more than 6 T for a few tens of thousands of pulses. The large transverse forces, accumulating from strand to strand over the cable cross-section, cause a severe deformation of the cable bundle inside the conduit and this goes along with electromagnetic, mechanical, and thermohydraulic effects. In order to study the electromagnetic and mechanical behaviour in more detail, a Cryogenic Cable Press is build to simulate the effect of the Lorentz forces on a conductor comparable to the present design for ITER in magnet operating conditions. The magnetisation of the conductor (and from this the coupling loss expressed in nτ) and the interstrand resistance (R_c) between various strands and strand bundles inside the cable can be measured along the loading history, starting at virgin condition and accordingly subjected to various loads. The results, all obtained on eight full-size ITER type NbTi conductor samples with a variety of cable strand layout and coatings, are reported here.A consistent correlation is found between the experimental AC loss and interstrand contact resistance (R_c) results. It is also observed that there is a strong impact of cyclic loading on the AC loss and R_c which may change up to orders of magnitude. The variation of the AC loss due to transverse cyclic loading of CICC conductors in ITER coils can be accomplished by reducing the void fraction. The results point out that cyclic loading with a significant number of cycles, sufficient to reach a saturation after having passed the peak transverse resistance, should be included in next tests on large NbTi CICC's and PF Model Coils as the AC loss and ability of current sharing among strands will vary along the loading history.