Potential improvement of polysilicon solar cells by grain boundary and intragrain diffusion of aluminum

Abstract

Experimental results are presented that imply potential improvements afforded by aluminum diffusion in both bulk and thin-film polysilicon solar cells. For bulk cells, a high-temperature aluminum diffusion (alloying) is shown to increase the minority-carrier diffusion length by gettering intragrain impurities. The role of the grain boundaries in this process and the influence of a light bias on the carrier lifetime are discussed. For thin-film cells, a low-temperature aluminum diffusion is shown to substantially passivate grain boundaries and hence decrease the recombination velocity. The decrease is evaluated using electron-beam-induced-current (EBIC) measurements interpreted via numerical analysis of the underlying carrier-transport problem. The actual benefit of the grain-boundary passivation to the open-circuit voltage of a thin-film cell is discussed.