Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

Research Details

Silicon Heterojunction Technology

One of the main research activities of the KPV-LAB is the development of high-efficiency solar cells, based on silicon wafers.

Transparent Contacts

At KPV-LAB we focus on the following topics for the transparent contact development:

Improving the fundamental understanding of ‘passivating’ contacts

Importance Fermi-level unpinning

Passivating-contact engineering

New buffer layers (better transparency/tunneling trade-off)
Minimizing temperature-coefficient solar cells
Application to non-Si absorbers

Doping-free approaches: we aim higher contact transparency
Solution-processed contacts

Road to simple back-contacted solar cells

New Device Architectures

Our major aim is improving the performance of the photovoltaic devices by better temperature tolerance and light management. For this, we focus on the following topics.

Device polarity
Bifaciality
Back-contacted heterojunction solar cells

Schematic illustration of the back-contacted (left) and bifacial SHJ (right) (Reference: T. G. Allen, J. Bullock, X. Yang, A. Javey, S. De Wolf, Nature Energy 2019.)

In the KPV-LAB, we use Indeotec OCTOPUS II PECVD-PVD cluster to fabricate silicon heterojunction solar cells

The Octopus II system is the latest product generation of the OCTOPUS equipment portfolio. The OCTOPUS II combines a couple of all-new, impressive and proprietary reactor and system design developments such as the IRFE technology for exceptional stable plasma conditions, the Mirror reactor concept for the top and bottom deposition or the potential combination of the PECVD and PVD deposition mode in one system without any interruption of the process sequence.

Indeotec OCTOPUS II PECVD-PVD cluster

Related Publications

Electron-Selective ‍Lithium Contacts for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

This study, which takes place Advanced Materials Interfaces reports metallic lithium contact, applied to crystalline silicon solar cell and proved to be an excellent electron-selective, hole-blocking transport layer with an efficiency of 19%.

Heat generation and mitigation in silicon solar cells and modules

This study, which came out in Joule, reveals that once the PCE approaches a practical upper limit, work on the control and mitigation of the module temperature can be equally or even more significant than costly marginal gains in PCE.

Atomic Layer Deposition of Vanadium Oxide as Hole‐Selective Contact for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

A Highly Conductive Titanium Oxynitride Electron‐Selective Contact for Efficient Photovoltaic Devices

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

Areej's in situ plasma approach offers excellent thickness control and superior structural integrity upon thermal annealing at 1000 °C. This study, which gives implied open‐circuit voltage exceeding 700 mV published in Advanced Materials Interfaces.

Intrinsic Silicon Buffer Layer Improves Hole‐Collecting Poly‐Si Passivating Contact

This study, which develops a strategy to circumvent the problem of boron diffusion into the silicon, took place in the recent issue of Advanced Materials Interfaces. This study is the first publication KPV-LAB in the field of poly‐Si passivating contact solar cells.

Damp-Heat-Stable, High-Efficiency, Industrial-Size Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells

This study, published in Joule, reports 23.9%-efficient 6-in silicon heterojunction solar cells with improved damp-heat-stability for aiming the mass production.

Polymeric Electron-Selective Contact for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells with an Efficiency Exceeding 19%

This study presents that polyethyleneimine (b-PEI), which is Lewis base polymer, performs as an efficient electron transport layer for c-Si solar cells.

Mitigating Plasmonic Absorption Losses at Rear Electrodes in High‐Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells Using Dopant‐Free Contact Stacks

Passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells

A comprehensive review covering the passivating contacts for silicon solar cells.

Poly-Silicon Passivating Contacts for Silicon Solar Cells: Interface Passivation and Carrier Transport Mechanism

Dual-Function Electron-Conductive, Hole-Blocking Titanium Nitride Contacts for Efficient Silicon Solar Cells

Dip Coating Passivation of Crystalline Silicon by Lewis Acids

Metal-induced gap states in passivating metal-silicon contacts

Tantalum Nitride Electron Selective Contact for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

With this study, for the first time in literature Tantalum Nitride has been used as passivating contact on silicon solar cells.

Related People

Areej Alzahrani

Arsalan Razzaq

Erkan Aydin

Jingxuan Kang

Lujia Xu

Maxime Babics

Michele De Bastiani

Stefaan De Wolf

Thomas G. Allen