Passivation of the surface of rear contact solar cells by porous silicon

In this paper we analyse the passivation of the front surface of p-Si interdigitated rear contacts solar cell (IBC) by a thin porous silicon (PS) layer. Effectively, an efficiency improvement of 87% in relative was observed after porous silicon layer formation on the front surface of the IBC cell. The origin of surface passivation by the PS layer was studied by Laser Beam Induced Current (LBIC) method. The front surface of rear contacts cell with thin porous silicon layer was scanned by a modulated red laser beam in presence of a permanent light with different wavelengths and intensities. It was shown that without permanent illumination, the photocurrent of the cell with PS layer is very low, even lower than for a cell with unpassivated surface. However with short permanent wavelength illumination a strong increase of photocurrent was observed (8 - 10 times!). The light-dependent porous silicon passivation phenomenon is explained by a significant negative charge accumulation at the PS/p-Si interface traps under illumination. This leads to the formation of a hi-low (p(+)/p) junction at the front surface of the cell and to the reduction of the front surface recombination rate, like in Front Surface Field Solar Cell. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.