Influences of copper and titanium contaminations on the photovoltaic performances of crystalline silicon solar cells

Overview & Synopsis

This thesis focuses on the influence of copper (Cu) and titanium (Ti) contaminations on the photovoltaic (PV) performances of p-type crystalline silicon (Si) solar cells. These impurities are common in Si and can be considered as model elements since they behave differently and their properties are similar to those of other transition metals. For these studies, deliberately contaminated and uncontaminated single-crystalline Czochralski (Cz) and multicrystalline (mc) ingots were grown. The compositional and electrical properties of these ingots were extensively characterized. Then wafers from these ingots were transformed into solar cells in order to assess the impact of Cu and Ti on the PV conversion efficiency (η), its evolution under illumination, and the p-n junction breakdown voltage (Vbd). We showed that Ti strongly affects the η, for both Cz and mc Si solar cells (even if only 6 ppm wt of Ti were added into the feedstock). This is due to the high recombination strength of interstitial Ti atoms (even after an hydrogenation step), which are not efficiently extracted by the external gettering effect developped by the phosphorus (P) diffusion, due to their low diffusivity. However, the Ti contamination did not significantly influence the Vbd and was compatible with stable η under illumination. On the other hand, we unexpectedly showed that a strong contamination of the Si feedstock by Cu (90 ppm wt of Cu added to the feedstock) do not affect the η of the mc cells. This is essentially due to the lower recombination strength of Cu atoms, which are in addition efficiently extracted by external gettering effects due to their high diffusivity. Nevertheless, we showed that Cu could slighty enhance the junction breakdown. Above all, the mc Cu contaminated cells were affected by light-induced degradation (LID) effects. We showed that these Cu-related LID were activated by the metallization firing step (rapid annealing), which indirectely confirmed that these LID effects would be due to the precipitation of Cu atoms under illumination.