Titanium Nitride Electron-Conductive Contact for Silicon Solar Cells By Radio Frequency Sputtering from a TiN Target

Efficient and stable electron selective materials compatible with commercial production are essential to the fabrication of dopant-free silicon solar cells. In this work, we report an air-stable TiN (titanium nitride) polycrystalline film, deposited using radio frequency sputtering process, as an electron selective contact in silicon solar cells. TiN films deposited at 300 W and 1.5 mTorr exhibit a low contact resistivity of 2.0 mΩ·cm2. Furthermore, the main factors and mechanisms affecting the carrier selectivity properties are also explored. TiN layers as full area rear electron contacts in n-type silicon solar cells have been successfully implemented, even though TiN film contains some oxygen. This process yields a 17% increment in relative efficiency in comparison with reference devices (n-Si/Al contact). Hence, considering the low thermal budget, scalable technique, and low contact resistivity, the TiN layers can pave the way to fabricate high-efficiency selective contact silicon solar cells with a higher degree of reproducibility.