Application of rapid thermal processing on SiN thin film to solar cells

Abstract

Rapid thermal processing (RTP) of SiN_x thin films from PECVD with low temperature was investigated. A special processing condition of this technique which could greatly increase the minority lifetime was found in the experiments. The processing mechanism and the application of the technique to silicon solar cells fabrication were discussed. A main achievement is an increase of the minority lifetime in silicon wafer with SiN_x thin film by about 200% after the RTP was reached. PC-1D simulation results exhibit an enhancement of the efficiency of the solar cell by 0.42% coming from the minority lifetime improvement. The same experiment was also conducted with P-diffusion silicon wafers, but the increment of minority lifetime is just about 55%. It could be expected to improve the solar cell efficiency if it would be used in silicon solar cells fabrication with the combination of laser firing contact technique.

Keywords

SiN_x thin films / rapid thermal processing (RTP) / laser firing contact (LFC) / solar cells