Eliminating Light-Induced Degradation in Commercial p-Type Czochralski Silicon Solar Cells
Source abstract
Abstract
This paper discusses developments in the mitigation of light-induced degradation caused by boron-oxygen defects in boron-doped Czochralski grown silicon. Particular attention is paid to the fabrication of industrial silicon solar cells with treatments for sensitive materials using illuminated annealing. It highlights the importance and desirability of using hydrogen-containing dielectric layers and a subsequent firing process to inject hydrogen throughout the bulk of the silicon solar cell and subsequent illuminated annealing processes for the formation of the boron-oxygen defects and simultaneously manipulate the charge states of hydrogen to enable defect passivation. For the photovoltaic industry with a current capacity of approximately 100 GW peak, the mitigation of boron-oxygen related light-induced degradation is a necessity to use cost-effective B-doped silicon while benefitting from the high-efficiency potential of new solar cell concepts.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Silicon and Solar Cell Technologies · Photovoltaic System Optimization Techniques · Photovoltaic Systems and Sustainability
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstr. 10, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
Now with Department of Materials, University of Oxford, 16 Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
Now with Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering, Aalto University, Tiototie 3, 02150 Espoo, Finland
Funding
German Federal Ministry · Australian Renewable Energy Agency · Australian Center for Advanced Photovoltaics · Australian Research Council · EPSRC
References (100+)
Show source-provided references
1. Edenhofer, O., Pichs-Madruga, R., Sokona, Y., Minx, J.C., Farahani, E., Susanne, K., Seyboth, K., Adler, A., Baum, I., and Brunner, S. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change, IPCC.
2. An integrated assessment of changes in the thermohaline circulation10.1007/s10584-009-9561-y ↗
3. PV solar electricity industry: Market growth and perspective10.1016/j.solmat.2005.09.022 ↗
4. An innovation-focused roadmap for a sustainable global photovoltaic industry10.1016/j.enpol.2013.12.006 ↗
5. (2017). International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaic: 2016 Results, VDMA. [8th ed.].
6. Fischer, H., and Pschunder, W. (1973, January 13–15). Investigation of photon and thermal induced changes in silicon solar cells. Proceedings of the 10th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
7. Ramspeck, K., Zimmermann, S., Nagel, H., Metz, A., Gassenbauer, Y., Birkmann, B., and Seidl, A. (2012, January 24–28). Light induced degradation of rear passivated mc-Si solar cells. Proceedings of the 27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Frankfurt, Germany.
8. Structure and transformation of the metastable boron- and oxygen-related defect center in crystalline silicon10.1103/PhysRevB.69.024107 ↗
9. Fast and slow lifetime degradation in boron-doped Czochralski silicon described by a single defect10.1002/pssr.201600096 ↗
10. Recent insights into boron-oxygen related degradation: Evidence of a single defect10.1016/j.solmat.2017.06.038 ↗
11. The nature of boron-oxygen lifetime-degrading centres in silicon10.1002/pssc.201600016 ↗
12. Degradation of crystalline silicon due to boron–oxygen defects10.1109/JPHOTOV.2016.2614119 ↗
13. Knobloch, J., Glunz, S.W.W., Biro, D., Warta, W., Schaffer, E., and Wettling, W. (1996, January 13–17). Solar cells with efficiencies above 21% processed from Czochroalski grown silicon. Proceedings of the 25th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Washington, DC, USA.10.1109/PVSC.1996.564029 ↗
14. Cho, E., Lai, J.-H., Ok, Y., Upadhyaya, A.D., Rohatgi, A., Binns, M.J., Appel, J., Guo, J., Fang, H., and Good, E.A. (2015, January 14–19). Light-induced degradation free and high efficiency p-type indium-doped PERC solar cells on Czochralski silicon. Proceedings of the IEEE 42nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), New Orleans, LA, USA.
15. Lee, K., Kim, M.-S., Lim, J.-K., Ahn, J.-H., Hwang, M.-I., and Cho, E.-C. (2015, January 14–18). Natural recovery from LID: Regeneration under field conditions?. Proceedings of the 31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition- EU PVSEC, Hamburg, Germany.
16. Hallam, B., Bilbao, J., Payne, D., Chan, C., Kim, M., Chen, D., Gorman, N., Abbott, M., and Wenham, S. (2016, January 21–24). Modelling the long-term behaviour of boron-oxygen defect passivation in the field using Typical Meteorological Year Data (TMY2). Proceedings of the 32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, München, Germany.
17. Hill, J. (2017, November 06). Global Solar Market Demand Expected to Reach 100 Gigawatts in 2017, Says SolarPower Europe. Available online: https://cleantechnica.com/2017/10/27/global-solar-market-demand-expected-reach-100-gw-2017-solarpower-europe/.
18. Colville, F. (2016, January 16). Forecast for PV cell production & capex: 2016–2018. Proceedings of the Oral Presentation at PVCellTech, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
19. (2017, November 06). PV Insights. Available online: http://pvinsights.com.
20. Glunz, S.W., Rein, S., Warta, W., Knobloch, J., and Wettling, W. (1998, January 6–10). On the degradation of Cz-silicon solar cells. Proceedings of the 2nd World Conference on Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conversion, Vienna, Austria.
21. Comparison of boron-and gallium-doped p-type Czochralski silicon for photovoltaic application10.1002/(SICI)1099-159X(199911/12)7:6<463::AID-PIP293>3.0.CO;2-H ↗
22. Rein, S., Diez, S., Falster, R., and Glunz, S.W. (2003, January 11–18). Quantitative correlation of the metastable defect in Cz-silicon with different impurities. Proceedings of the 3rd World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Osaka, Japan.
23. Fundamental boron-oxygen-related carrier lifetime limit in mono-and multicrystalline silicon10.1002/pip.586 ↗
24. Electronically activated boron-oxygen-related recombination centers in crystalline silicon10.1063/1.2140584 ↗
25. Schmidt, J., Aberle, A.G., and Hezel, R. (October, January 29). Investigation of carrier lifetime instabilities in Cz-grown silicon. Proceedings of the 26th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Anaheim, CA, USA.
26. Boron-oxygen defect imaging in p-type Czochralski silicon10.1063/1.4819096 ↗
27. Boron-oxygen defect in Czochralski-silicon co-doped with gallium and boron10.1063/1.3680205 ↗
28. Generation and annihilation of boron-oxygen-related recombination centers in compensated p-and n-type silicon10.1063/1.3511741 ↗
29. Light-induced boron-oxygen defect generation in compensated p-type Czochralski silicon10.1063/1.3121208 ↗
30. Geilker, J., Kwapil, W., and Rein, S. (2011). Light-induced degradation in compensated p- and n-type Czochralski silicon wafers. J. Appl. Phys., 109.10.1063/1.3552302 ↗
31. The origin of the difference in the mechanical strengths of Czochralski-grown silicon and float-zone-grown silicon10.1143/JJAP.19.L49 ↗
32. Grown-in defects limiting the bulk lifetime of p-type float-zone silicon wafers10.1063/1.4907804 ↗
33. Thermal deactivation of lifetime-limiting grown-in point defects in n-type Czochralski silicon wafers10.1002/pssr.201308053 ↗
34. Light-induced activation and deactivation of bulk defects in boron-doped float-zone silicon10.1063/1.4983024 ↗
35. Czochralski silicon crystals grown in a transverse magnetic field10.1149/1.2113933 ↗
36. Oxygen transport in magnetic Czochralski growth of silicon10.1016/0022-0248(87)90339-3 ↗
37. Czochralski growth of silicon10.1016/0022-0248(83)90051-9 ↗
38. Nakajima, K., Murai, R., Morishita, K., Kutsukake, K., and Usami, N. (2012, January 3–8). Growth of multicrystalline Si ingots for solar cells using noncontact crucible method without touching the crucible wall. Proceedings of the 38th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), Austin, TX, USA.10.1109/PVSC.2012.6317949 ↗
39. Oxygen transport from a silica crucible in Czochralski silicon growth10.1016/0022-0248(96)00211-4 ↗
40. Study on defects and impurities in cast-grown polycrystalline silicon substrates for solar cells10.1016/j.physb.2005.12.062 ↗
41. Multicrystalline silicon for solar cells10.1016/j.tsf.2005.01.061 ↗
42. Transition metals in photovoltaic-grade ingot-cast multicrystalline silicon: Assessing the role of impurities in silicon nitride crucible lining material10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2005.11.053 ↗
43. Casting single crystal silicon: Novel defect profiles from BP Solar’s mono2 TM wafers
44. About the origin of low wafer performance and crystal defect generation on seed-cast growth of industrial mono-like silicon ingots10.1002/pip.2344 ↗
45. ITRPV Working Group and Others (2016). International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV.net): Results 2015, ITRPV. [7th ed.].
46. Engineering silicon crystals for photovoltaics10.1039/C5CE02343B ↗
47. Kersten, F., Engelhart, P., Ploigt, H.-C., Stekolnikov, A., Lindner, T., Stenzel, F., Bartzsch, M., Szpeth, A., Petter, K., and Heitmann, J. (2015, January 14–19). A new mc-Si degradation effect called LeTID. Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, New Orleans, LA, USA.10.1109/PVSC.2015.7355684 ↗
48. Light-induced degradation of PECVD aluminium oxide passivated silicon solar cells10.1002/pssr.201409424 ↗
49. Engineering solutions and root-cause analysis for light-induced degradation in p-type multicrystalline silicon PERC modules10.1109/JPHOTOV.2016.2556981 ↗
50. Zuschlag, A., Skorka, D., and Hahn, G. (2016). Degradation and regeneration in mc-Si after different gettering steps. Prog. Photovolt. Res. Appl.10.1109/PVSC.2016.7749772 ↗
51. Statistics of the recombinations of holes and electrons10.1103/PhysRev.87.835 ↗
52. Electron-hole recombination in germanium10.1103/PhysRev.87.387 ↗
53. The properties of iron in silicon10.1149/1.2127478 ↗
54. Formation rates of iron-acceptor pairs in crystalline silicon10.1063/1.2102071 ↗
55. New determinations of diffusion coefficients for various dopants in liquid silicon10.1007/s10765-007-0205-z ↗
56. Solid solubilities of impurity elements in germanium and silicon10.1002/j.1538-7305.1960.tb03928.x ↗
57. Rosenits, P., Roth, T., Glunz, S.W., and Beljakowa, S. (2007). Determining the defect parameters of the deep aluminum-related defect center in silicon. Appl. Phys. Lett., 91.10.1063/1.2789378 ↗
58. Light-induced degradation in indium-doped silicon10.1002/pssr.201307165 ↗
59. Improved quantitative description of Auger recombination in crystalline silicon10.1103/PhysRevB.86.165202 ↗
60. Impurity-related limitations of next-generation industrial silicon solar Cells10.1109/JPHOTOV.2012.2210030 ↗
61. Effect of high temperature pre-anneal on oxygen precipitates nucleation kinetics in Si10.4028/www.scientific.net/SSP.57-58.123 ↗
62. Detecting efficiency-limiting defects in Czochralski-grown silicon wafers in solar cell production using photoluminescence imaging10.1002/pssr.201105183 ↗
63. Cousins, P.J., Smith, D.D., Luan, H.-C., Manning, J., Dennis, T.D., Waldhauer, A., Wilson, K.E., Harley, G., and Mulligan, W.P. (2010, January 20–25). Generation 3: Improved performance at lower cost. Proceedings of the 35th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), Honolulu, HI, USA.10.1109/PVSC.2010.5615850 ↗
64. Solar energy materials & solar cells bulk defect formation under light soaking in seed-end n-type Czochralski silicon wafers—Effect on silicon heterojunction solar cells10.1016/j.solmat.2017.03.019 ↗
65. Suppression of boron—Oxygen defects in p-type Czochralski silicon10.1063/1.3475486 ↗
66. Dislocation behavior in heavily germanium-doped silicon crystal10.1016/S1369-8001(02)00128-2 ↗
67. Defects in silicon10.1088/0034-4885/45/10/003 ↗
68. Powerful recombination centers resulting from reactions of hydrogen with carbon-oxygen defects in n-type Czochralski-grown silicon
69. Advanced PERC and PERL production cells with 20.3% record efficiency for standard commercial p-type silicon wafers10.1002/pip.2178 ↗
70. Weaver, J.F. (2017, November 06). EGEG: LONGi at 22.7% Efficiency—Year End Launch, 40% of Electricity in US from Glass, More. Available online: https://electrek.co/2017/10/24/egeg-longi-at-22-7-efficiency-year-end-launch-40-of-electricity-in-us-from-glass-more/.
71. Hallam, B., Hamer, P., Kim, M., Nampalli, N., Gorman, N., Chen, D., Chan, C., Abbott, M., and Wenham, S. (2016, January 5–10). Direct Transitions Between States A and C in the Boron-Oxygen Defect System? Fact or Fiction?. Proceedings of the 43rd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Portland, OR, USA.10.1109/PVSC.2016.7750078 ↗
72. On the equilibrium concentration of boron-oxygen defects in crystalline silicon10.1016/j.solmat.2017.06.036 ↗
73. Multiple pathways for permanent deactivation of boron-oxygen defects in p-type silicon10.1016/j.solmat.2017.06.041 ↗
74. Degradation of carrier lifetime in Cz silicon solar cells10.1016/S0927-0248(00)00098-2 ↗
75. Minority carrier lifetime degradation in boron-doped Czochralski silicon10.1063/1.1389076 ↗
76. Nagel, H., Merkle, A., Metz, A., and Hezel, R. (2000, January 1–5). Permanent reduction of excess-carrier-induced recombination centers in solar grade Czochralski silicon by a short yet effective anneal. Proceedings of the 16th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Glasgow, UK.
77. Suppression of light degradation of carrier lifetimes in low-resistivity CZ—Si solar cells10.1016/S0927-0248(00)00103-3 ↗
78. Bothe, K., Schmidt, J., and Hezel, R. (2002, January 19–24). Effective reduction of the metastable defect concentration in boron-doped Czochralski silicon for solar cells. Proceedings of the 29th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, New Orleans, LA, USA.
79. Influence of net doping, excess carrier density and annealing on the boron oxygen related defect density in compensated n-type silicon10.1063/1.3633492 ↗
80. Effect of rapid thermal annealing on recombination centres in boron-doped Czochralski-grown silicon10.1063/1.4863674 ↗
81. Unsur, V., Hussain, B., and Ebong, A. (2016, January 5–10). Complete recovery of light induced degradation of Cz silicon solar cells with rapid thermal processing. Proceedings of the 43rd Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Portland, OR, USA.10.1109/PVSC.2016.7749695 ↗
82. Effect of rapid thermal processing on light-induced degradation of carrier lifetime in Czochralski p-type silicon bare wafers10.1007/s11664-016-4769-x ↗
83. Herguth, A., Schubert, G., Käs, M., and Hahn, G. (2006, January 7–12). A new approach to prevent the negative impact of the metastable defect in boron doped Cz silicon solar cells. Proceedings of the 4th IEEE World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, Waikoloa, HI, USA.10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279611 ↗
84. Herguth, A., Schubert, G., Kaes, M., and Hahn, G. (2006, January 4–8). Avoiding boron-oxygen related degradation in highly boron doped Cz silicon. Proceedings of the 21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Dresden, Germany.
85. Herguth, A., and Hahn, G. (2009, January 21–25). Boron-oxygen related defects in Cz-silicon solar cells degradation, regeneration and beyond. Proceedings of the 24th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Hamburg, Germany.
86. Kinetics of the boron-oxygen related defect in theory and experiment10.1063/1.3517155 ↗
87. Influence of bound hydrogen states on BO-regeneration kinetics and consequences for high-speed regeneration processes10.1016/j.solmat.2014.06.027 ↗
88. Implications of accelerated recombination-active defect complex formation for mitigating carrier-induced degradation in silicon10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2494691 ↗
89. Influence of the formation- and passivation rate of Boron-Oxygen defects for mitigating carrier-induced degradation in silicon within a Hydrogen-Based Model10.1063/1.4941387 ↗
90. Kinetics of the permanent deactivation of the boron-oxygen complex in crystalline silicon as a function of illumination intensity10.1063/1.4978266 ↗
91. Two-stage permanent deactivation of the boron-oxygen-related recombination center in crystalline silicon10.1016/j.egypro.2017.09.350 ↗
92. Modelling kinetics of the boron-oxygen defect system10.1016/j.egypro.2016.07.008 ↗
93. From simulation to experiment: Understanding BO-regeneration kinetics10.1016/j.solmat.2015.06.012 ↗
94. Studying light-induced degradation by lifetime decay analysis: Excellent fit to solution of simple second-order rate equation10.1109/JPHOTOV.2013.2278663 ↗
95. Lim, B., Hermann, S., Bothe, K., Schmidt, J., and Brendel, R. (2008, January 1–5). Permanent deactivation of the boron-oxygen recombination center in silicon solar cells. Proceedings of the 23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, Valencia, Spain.
96. Deactivation of the boron–oxygen recombination center in silicon by illumination at elevated temperature10.1002/pssr.200802009 ↗
97. Wilking, S., Ebert, S., Beckh, C., Herguth, A., and Hahn, G. (2016, January 21–24). Of Apples and oranges: Why comparing bo regeneration rates requires injection level correction. Proceedings of the 32nd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, München, Germany.
98. Investigations on the long time behavior of the metastable boron-oxygen complex in crystalline silicon10.1002/pip.779 ↗
99. Hallam, B. (2014). High Efficiency Laser-Doped Silicon Solar Cells with Advanced Hydrogenation. [Ph.D. Thesis, University of New South Wales].
100. Hamer, P. (2014). Hydrogen Charge States and Dopant Interactions in Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells. [Ph.D. Thesis, University of New South Wales].