DR BRETT HALLAM, CTO & Research Director for Advanced Hydrogenation – USNW | Topic: Next Generation p-type Solar Cells with Passivated Contacts
We report on the progress of next-generation p-type solar cells featuring passivated contacts. A modification in heterojunction solar cell processing using pre-fabrication gettering and a multi-stage bulk hydrogenation process for heterojunction solar cells is shown to greatly increase the quality of p-type Cz, p-type multi and n-type Cz wafers. We demonstrate a record independently-confirmed open circuit voltage (VOC) of 707 mV for boron-doped p-type Cz silicon and VOC of 702 mV for p-type multi, 30 mV higher than the record efficiency PERC cell by Jinko. Improvements in the bulk lifetime of n-type Cz wafers from 100 µs to 5 ms is also presented. We highlight a path towards hybrid heterojunction devices capable of VOCs well over 700 mV and retaining high JSC values.