Temperature sensitivity maps of silicon wafers from photoluminescence imaging: the effect of gettering and hydrogenation
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The operating temperature has a critical impact on the electrical performance of solar cells. It has been shown that the temperature coefficient is not uniform across devices and often varies between different regions due to the inhomogeneous distributions of defects. In this study, temperature-dependent photoluminescence imaging measurements are used to assess the influence of different processes such as gettering, firing and advanced hydrogenation on the temperature-dependent electrical performance of cast-mono silicon wafers. It is found that the height of the wafer within the ingot impacts the response of the temperature coefficient to different fabrication processes. Advanced hydrogenation is found to reduce the temperature sensitivity, more than expected solely from the improvement in implied open-circuit voltage. Crystallographic defects are found to be the least temperature sensitive regions, indicating that their detrimental impact is reduced at higher operating temperatures. The interesting low temperature sensitivity in the defective regions is further investigated using hyperspectral photoluminescence imaging measurements and atom probe tomography. It is suggested that the reduced sensitivity is due to impurities decorating crystallographic defects.
Date Issued
2022-11
Date Acceptance
2022-05-04
Citation
Progress in Photovoltaics: research and applications, 2022, 30 (11), pp.1298-1311
ISSN
1062-7995
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
1298
End Page
1311
Journal / Book Title
Progress in Photovoltaics: research and applications
Volume
30
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pip.3579
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-05-24