Broadly speaking, the solar cell industry has followed two paths in its forty year history. Single-crystal and multicrystalline silicon solar cells have demonstrated high efficiency and long operating lifetimes, but have been prohibitively costly for many applications. Alternatively, low cost thin-film solar cell technologies, such as those based on amorphous silicon or other semiconductors such as CdTe, have the appealing features of reduced materials consumption and the potential for high-throughput production in thin-film coating processes. They are also amenable to monolithic array designs to drastically reduce costs of creating modules. Unfortunately, thin film solar cells have generally failed to demonstrate the efficiency or reliability of crystalline silicon solar cells.
The 1980s witnessed the first serious consideration of hybrid approaches, wherein thin-films of silicon are deposited on low-cost substrates, the purpose of which is to combine the high efficiency and reliability associated with crystalline silicon solar cells with the low-cost potential of thin-film deposition technology. This new thinking was bolstered by the realization that thin silicon solar cells that incorporate optical features using light trapping effects could not only ameliorate penalties in efficiency previously expected with thin silicon solar cells, but that the thin (<50 micron) device configuration was actually the best design for a silicon solar cell. U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,448, granted to A. M. Barnett in 1986, discloses a seminal design for a thin film photovoltaic solar cell on a low-cost substrate.
Many of the expected advantages of a thin silicon solar cell, such as high photogenerated currents due to light-trapping, high voltages due to higher doping levels, monolithic interconnection, reduced sensitivity to impurities and crystal defects, and enhanced gettering potential, have been demonstrated singularly in various experimental devices. However, the useful and synergistic combination of these features in a cost-effective, manufacturable production technology has eluded the industry. The formidable materials problems encountered in achieving this objective, specifically the difficulties in producing thin layers of high quality silicon on low-cost substrates, is the main technical hurdle.
The disclosed photovoltaic device and method for making the device overcomes the previously mentioned problems in part by making use of thin films on relatively low cost substrates. Disclosed is a front-surface-illuminated photovoltaic device having a first semiconductor layer, or substrate, with a back surface; a second semiconductor layer with a front surface, the second layer being of opposite doping type to the first layer and deposited on the first layer; and at least one ohmic contact to each of the first and second semiconductor layers. The device may also have a barrier layer for reducing diffusion of impurities from the first semiconductor layer into the second semiconductor layer, and a reflector layer. The device may also have a semiconductor blocking layer. The blocking layer and barrier layer allow the use of less pure (hence less expensive) substrates compared to previous approaches.
The device may have an array of first regions in which the second layer is of opposite doping type to that of the first layer and forms p-n junctions in these first regions, and second regions, each second region containing the barrier layer and the reflector layer. The first and second regions are laterally intermixed and have a lateral shape of either bounded regions or stripes, or a combination of bounded regions and is stripes. The distance between centers of any two adjacent first regions is less than one minority carrier diffusion length in the second semiconductor layer to optimize carrier collection efficiency.
Following common practice, the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. Some relative sizes have been exaggerated in order to better describe the invention.
Still referring to
In an alternative embodiment, blocking layer 120 is not confined to first regions 115, as in
Continuing with the embodiment of
As an option, as shown in the embodiment in
The device may have front passivation on the front surface to reduce recombination over the front surface and, in general, stabilize the electrical characteristics of the device. The front passivation may be made of at least one of the following: a front passivation layer 150, a floating p-n junction 100, or a heteroface. A heteroface is an electrical junction between dissimilar semiconductor materials. It could be formed, for example, by deposition of n-type GaP on the top surface of a p-type silicon absorber layer 130. Floating junction 100 may be formed by diffusion of dopant into absorber layer 130, the dopant of opposite type to that of absorber layer 130.
The device may have an anti-reflection coating 140 covering front passivation layer 150 and floating junctions 100. Anti-reflection coating 140 decreases the fraction of incident light reflected from the front surface and therefore improves overall conversion efficiency of the device.
Electrical contact is made to the device using at least one front ohmic contact 160 to absorber layer 130 and at least one back ohmic contact 230 to substrate 180. An additional doping layer (not shown) may be added to substrate 180 at back contact interface 175 to decrease contact resistance. Alternatively, separate doping for the back contact 230 may not be required; the doping of the substrate 180 may be sufficiently high to give an ohmic contact without additional doping at interface 175. In one embodiment the doping of the substrate can be as high as it needs to be to get good ohmic contact with the deposited back contact metal 230. There would not be a need for a diffused or alloyed layer at the interface 175. For the front ohmic contact 160, additional doping layer 170 may be formed in absorber layer 130 to reduce recombination at the front contact. For example, if the absorber layer 130 is n-type, an n+ layer may be fabricated under the contacts. Front passivation layer 150, a heteroface, or a floating junction 100 reduces recombination across the rest of the front surface.
The front contact 160 may be buried. In an embodiment in which internal passivation layer 210 is not present, and reflector layer 200 is a good electrical conductor, such as a metal, an electrical connection may be established from front metal contact 160 to reflector layer 200 by using a heavily doped vertical layer (not shown). Seed layer 220 on top of reflector layer 200, if present, as disclosed below, could be heavily doped to reduce recombination.
Substrate 180 has a thickness in the range of about 100 to about 500 micrometers, sufficient to provide mechanical support. Substrate 180 can be doped either p-type or n-type. It may be composed, entirely or partially, of silicon, Si. As one example, p-type semiconductor grade silicon is abundant, and an n-type layer on a p+ substrate has the advantage that an n-layer is generally more tolerant of electrical defects. Other suitable material for substrate 180 include: a mixture of silicon and another semiconductor material with a higher melting point than silicon, such as silicon carbide, SiC; metallurgical grade silicon; or a thin Si layer on steel, which provides enhanced flexibility and electrical contact conduction. Substrate 180 may be cast from molten semiconductor using known ceramic and metallurgy techniques. It may be given a textured surface to promote light trapping, described in more detail below.
Barrier layer 190, reflector layer 200, and internal passivation layer 210 add up to a total thickness between about 0.1 and about 0.5 micrometers. Barrier layer 190 material may be a nitride of silicon, an oxide of silicon, an oxide of aluminum, aluminum nitride, tungsten carbide, titanium carbide, or silicon carbide. Reflector layer 200 should have high reflectivity at light wavelengths close to the bandgap absorption wavelengths of the semiconductor material of absorber layer 130. Reflector layer 200 may be a metal or a non-metal. If absorber layer 130 is primarily silicon, appropriate metals for reflector layer 200 include nickel, silver, chrome, palladium or any combination thereof. Appropriate non-metals include titanium nitride, boron carbide, silicon carbide, or any combination thereof. Internal passivation layer 210 may be a nitride of silicon, an oxide of silicon, a carbide of silicon, or any combination thereof. Internal passivation layer 210 may also be a wide bandgap material, such as silicon carbide (SiC) which may form a high-low semiconductor junction with seed layer 220 or directly with absorber layer 130.
The thickness of absorber layer 130 in this embodiment is between about 5 and about 50 micrometers.
Front passivation layer 150 may be made of amorphous silicon, a nitride of silicon, or an oxide of silicon, or a combination of these.
Anti-reflection coating 140 may have a single layer or multiple layers of materials which are at least partially transparent to light in the range of wavelengths from the infra-red through the ultraviolet and which have appropriate indices of refraction and thicknesses. Suitable materials include, but are not limited to, a nitride of silicon, an oxide of titanium, an oxide of tantalum, an oxide of aluminum, an oxide of silicon, or any combination thereof.
In operation, photons enter the device through the front surface. Photons may be is absorbed directly in absorber layer 130. Some photons, especially those of longer wavelength, may pass completely through absorber layer 130 to reflector layer 200 without being absorbed. They may then be reflected back into absorber layer 130 and absorbed. If substrate 180 has a textured surface 260, reflector layer 200 may also have a textured surface, and photons striking reflector layer 200 will be scattered as well as reflected, increasing the optical path length and the likelihood of absorption in absorber layer 130. Photons may also pass through to textured surface 260 of substrate 180 in the first regions 115 where they are scattered back into absorber layer 130 and then absorbed. Once a photon is absorbed, an electron-hole pair is formed and the two carriers thermally diffuse. Carriers reaching depletion regions of p-n junctions 240 will be swept out, or collected, by the built-in electric fields of junctions 240 and contribute to external photocurrent.
For good efficiency of carrier collection, distances between openings defining first regions 115 should be small enough that carriers are collected before they recombine. One way this may be achieved is to make lateral distance between centers of any two adjacent first regions 115 less than one minority carrier diffusion length in absorber layer 130. In general, the distance between openings defining first regions 115 and/or the sizes of the openings may be chosen to optimize efficiency for a given diffusion length (or carrier lifetime) in absorber layer 130. For a silicon device, it is expected that the distance between centers of first regions 115 will fall in the range from about 2 to about 1000 micrometers, and the width of first regions 115 is expected to fall in the range from about 1 to about 50 micrometers.
Barrier layer 190 and reflector layer 200 may be formed using any known deposition technique including, but not limited to, APCVD, LPCVD, PECVD, MOCVD, or other chemical vapor deposition methods; evaporation; sputtering; spray pyrolysis; or printing. Barrier layer 190 may be formed using thermal oxidation.
Blocking layer 120 may be formed separately in an alternate embodiment in which blocking layer 120 is deposited directly on substrate 180 before forming of barrier layer 190. In this embodiment, forming of openings defining first regions 115 is done so that the openings terminate at blocking layer 120.
Alternatively, either one or both of blocking layer 120 and seed layer 220 may be omitted, depending on properties of substrate 180, such as impurity content and degree of crystallinity.
Absorber layer 130 may have acceptable electronic properties as deposited. Alternatively, absorber layer 130 may be formed by depositing a semiconductor layer and recrystallizing the deposited layer. Recrystallizing may be carried out using known techniques alone or in combination, including, but not limited to, a moving strip heater, or an optical source such as a laser or flashlamp. Recrystallization could take place in a reducing atmosphere, such as hydrogen plus argon, to prevent oxide formation during this step.
Front passivation layer 150 may be deposited using any of the deposition techniques disclosed above in the description of
Before deposition of passivation layer 150, the front surface of absorber layer 130 may be textured, either mechanically, chemically, or with a combination of these methods, to reduce front surface reflectance.
In an alternative embodiment, the device has substrate 180, absorber layer 130 of opposite doping type to the substrate 180 and deposited on substrate 180, at least one ohmic contact 160 to the absorber layer, at least one ohmic contact 160 to absorber layer 130 and at least one ohmic contact 230 to substrate 180. As in previously described embodiments, this embodiment may also have front passivation, single- or multiple-layer antireflection coating, and textured surfaces on the substrate and absorber layers. Materials for these structures and methods for making this device may be as previously disclosed.
Although the invention is illustrated and described herein with reference to specific embodiments, the invention is not intended to be limited to the details shown. Rather, various modifications may be made in the details within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims and without departing from the invention.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application 60/717,808 filed on Sep. 16, 2005.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/US06/29834 | 7/31/2006 | WO | 00 | 11/6/2008 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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60717808 | Sep 2005 | US |