Light-induced performance increase of silicon heterojunction solar cells

Eiji Kobayashi; Stefaan De Wolf; Jacques Levrat; Gabriel Christmann; Antoine Descoeudres; Sylvain Nicolay; Matthieu Despeisse; Yoshimi Watabe; Christophe Ballif

doi:10.1063/1.4964835

Light-induced performance increase of silicon heterojunction solar cells

Eiji Kobayashi, Stefaan De Wolf, Jacques Levrat, Gabriel Christmann, Antoine Descoeudres, Sylvain Nicolay, Matthieu Despeisse, Yoshimi Watabe, Christophe Ballif

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

76 Scopus citations

Abstract

Silicon heterojunction solar cells consist of crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers coated with doped/intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) bilayers for passivating-contact formation. Here, we unambiguously demonstrate that carrier injection either due to light soaking or (dark) forward-voltage bias increases the open circuit voltage and fill factor of finished cells, leading to a conversion efficiency gain of up to 0.3% absolute. This phenomenon contrasts markedly with the light-induced degradation known for thin-film a-Si:H solar cells. We associate our performance gain with an increase in surface passivation, which we find is specific to doped a-Si:H/c-Si structures. Our experiments suggest that this improvement originates from a reduced density of recombination-active interface states. To understand the time dependence of the observed phenomena, a kinetic model is presented.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	153503
Journal	Applied Physics Letters
Volume	109
Issue number	15
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4964835
State	Published - Oct 11 2016

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge Jan Haschke, Silvia Martin de Nicolas, Raphaël Monnard, Jean Cattin, Andrea Tomasi, Gizem Nogay, Andrea Ingenito, Philipp Löper, Franz-Josef Haug, Philipp Wyss, Josua Stuckelberger, Jonathan Champliaud, and Christophe Allebé for fruitful discussions. Financial support of Swiss Federal Office of Energy, EU FP7 program (CHETAAH Project, Contract No. 609788), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is acknowledged.

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title = "Light-induced performance increase of silicon heterojunction solar cells",

abstract = "Silicon heterojunction solar cells consist of crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers coated with doped/intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) bilayers for passivating-contact formation. Here, we unambiguously demonstrate that carrier injection either due to light soaking or (dark) forward-voltage bias increases the open circuit voltage and fill factor of finished cells, leading to a conversion efficiency gain of up to 0.3% absolute. This phenomenon contrasts markedly with the light-induced degradation known for thin-film a-Si:H solar cells. We associate our performance gain with an increase in surface passivation, which we find is specific to doped a-Si:H/c-Si structures. Our experiments suggest that this improvement originates from a reduced density of recombination-active interface states. To understand the time dependence of the observed phenomena, a kinetic model is presented.",

author = "Eiji Kobayashi and {De Wolf}, Stefaan and Jacques Levrat and Gabriel Christmann and Antoine Descoeudres and Sylvain Nicolay and Matthieu Despeisse and Yoshimi Watabe and Christophe Ballif",

note = "KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01 Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge Jan Haschke, Silvia Martin de Nicolas, Rapha{\"e}l Monnard, Jean Cattin, Andrea Tomasi, Gizem Nogay, Andrea Ingenito, Philipp L{\"o}per, Franz-Josef Haug, Philipp Wyss, Josua Stuckelberger, Jonathan Champliaud, and Christophe Alleb{\'e} for fruitful discussions. Financial support of Swiss Federal Office of Energy, EU FP7 program (CHETAAH Project, Contract No. 609788), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is acknowledged.",

year = "2016",

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doi = "10.1063/1.4964835",

language = "English (US)",

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T1 - Light-induced performance increase of silicon heterojunction solar cells

AU - Kobayashi, Eiji

AU - De Wolf, Stefaan

AU - Levrat, Jacques

AU - Christmann, Gabriel

AU - Descoeudres, Antoine

AU - Nicolay, Sylvain

AU - Despeisse, Matthieu

AU - Watabe, Yoshimi

AU - Ballif, Christophe

N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01 Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge Jan Haschke, Silvia Martin de Nicolas, Raphaël Monnard, Jean Cattin, Andrea Tomasi, Gizem Nogay, Andrea Ingenito, Philipp Löper, Franz-Josef Haug, Philipp Wyss, Josua Stuckelberger, Jonathan Champliaud, and Christophe Allebé for fruitful discussions. Financial support of Swiss Federal Office of Energy, EU FP7 program (CHETAAH Project, Contract No. 609788), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is acknowledged.

PY - 2016/10/11

Y1 - 2016/10/11

N2 - Silicon heterojunction solar cells consist of crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers coated with doped/intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) bilayers for passivating-contact formation. Here, we unambiguously demonstrate that carrier injection either due to light soaking or (dark) forward-voltage bias increases the open circuit voltage and fill factor of finished cells, leading to a conversion efficiency gain of up to 0.3% absolute. This phenomenon contrasts markedly with the light-induced degradation known for thin-film a-Si:H solar cells. We associate our performance gain with an increase in surface passivation, which we find is specific to doped a-Si:H/c-Si structures. Our experiments suggest that this improvement originates from a reduced density of recombination-active interface states. To understand the time dependence of the observed phenomena, a kinetic model is presented.

AB - Silicon heterojunction solar cells consist of crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers coated with doped/intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) bilayers for passivating-contact formation. Here, we unambiguously demonstrate that carrier injection either due to light soaking or (dark) forward-voltage bias increases the open circuit voltage and fill factor of finished cells, leading to a conversion efficiency gain of up to 0.3% absolute. This phenomenon contrasts markedly with the light-induced degradation known for thin-film a-Si:H solar cells. We associate our performance gain with an increase in surface passivation, which we find is specific to doped a-Si:H/c-Si structures. Our experiments suggest that this improvement originates from a reduced density of recombination-active interface states. To understand the time dependence of the observed phenomena, a kinetic model is presented.

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Light-induced performance increase of silicon heterojunction solar cells

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