In Situ Plasma‐Grown Silicon‐Oxide for Polysilicon Passivating Contacts

Abstract

Abstract Large‐scale manufacturing of polysilicon‐based passivating contacts for high‐efficiency crystalline silicon (c‐Si) solar cells demands simple fabrication of thermally stable SiOx films with well controlled microstructure and nanoscale thickness to enable quantum‐mechanical tunneling. Here, plasma‐dissociated CO2 is investigated to grow in situ thin (<2 nm) SiOx films on c‐Si wafers as tunnel‐oxides for plasma‐deposited, hole‐collecting (i.e., p‐type) polysilicon contacts. It is found that such plasma processing offers excellent thickness control and superior structural integrity upon thermal annealing at 1000 °C, compared to state‐of‐the‐art wet‐chemical oxides. As a result, p‐type polysilicon contacts are achieved on n‐type c‐Si wafers that combine excellent surface passivation, resulting in an implied open‐circuit voltage exceeding 700 mV, with a contact resistance as low as 0.02 Ω cm2.

Keywords

• polysilicon passivating contacts
• silicon
• solar cells