Title:  Fabrication and Modeling of High Efficiency and Stabilized p-type Passivated Emitter Rear Silicon Solar Cells

Committee: 

Dr. Rohatgi, Advisor    

Dr. Gaylord, Chair

Dr. Kippelen

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research is to achieve low-cost high-efficiency commercial-ready passivated emitter rear solar cells (PERC). Two specific aims are: 1) modeling and fabrication of high efficiency solar cells to reduce module cost for a given power output, and 2) reducing or eliminating of the widely observed light-induced degradation in PERC cells to increase power output for a given time. In the first part, fabrication of high-efficiency commercial-ready solar cells is achieved by technology innovations such as ion-implantation, multi-busbar and new screen design. Also, a practically achievable PERC cell efficiency roadmap is established by 2D Sentaurus modeling. In the second part, indium doped PERC solar cells are fabricated to eliminate light-induced degradation, since the source of degradation is boron-oxygen complexes in the boron doped p-type wafer. Also, a regeneration treatment to deactivate boron-oxygen complexes by appropriate light and heat exposure is proposed to achieve stabilized boron doped PERC solar cells.