Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 14, Issue 14, Pages 16413-16423Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c01225
Keywords
c-Si solar cells; passivating contacts; poly-Si; SiOx; X-ray reflectometry; in situ monitoring; annealing
Funding
- Swiss Federal Office for Energy (OFEN) [SI/50211501]
- European Union [101028491]
- Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) [101028491] Funding Source: Marie Curie Actions (MSCA)
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This study investigates the structural evolution of poly-Si contacts using in situ X-ray techniques, revealing the densification and thinning of the poly-Si layer during annealing, as well as the disruption of the thin SiOx layer at high temperature. The results emphasize the importance of controlling high-temperature processes when fabricating c-Si solar cells.
The integration of passivating contacts based on a highly doped polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) layer on top of a thin silicon oxide (SiOx) layer has been identified as the next step to further increase the conversion efficiency of current mainstream crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. However, the interrelation between the final properties of poly-Si/SiOx contacts and their fabrication process has not yet been fully unraveled, which is mostly due to the challenge of characterizing thin-film stacks with features in the nanometric range. Here, we apply in situ X-ray reflectometry and diffraction to investigate the multiscale (1 angstrom-100 nm) structural evolution of poly-Si contacts during annealing up to 900 degrees C. This allows us to quantify the densification and thinning of the poly-Si layer during annealing as well as to monitor the disruption of the thin SiOx layer at high temperature >800 degrees C. Moreover, results obtained on a broader range of thermal profiles, including firing with dwell times of a few seconds, emphasize the impact of high thermal budgets on poly-Si contacts' final properties and thus the importance of ensuring a good control of such high-temperature processes when fabricating c-Si solar cells integrating such passivating contacts. Overall, this study demonstrates the robustness of combining different X-ray elastic scattering techniques (here XRR and GIXRD), which present the unique advantage of being rapid, nondestructive, and applicable on a large sample area, to unravel the multiscale structural evolution of poly-Si contacts in situ during high-temperature processes.
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