Hot spots in multicrystalline silicon solar cells

Avalanche breakdown due to etch pits

verfasst von

J. Bauer, J. M. Wagner, A. Lotnyk, H. Blumtritt, B. Lim, J. Schmidt, O. Breitenstein

Abstract

Multicrystalline silicon solar cells typically show hard breakdown beginning from about -13 V bias, which leads to the well-known hot-spot problem. Using special lock-in thermography techniques, hard breakdown has been found to occur in regions of avalanche multiplication. A systematic study of these regions by various electron microscopy techniques has shown that the avalanche breakdown occurs at cone-shaped holes, located at dislocations and caused by acidic texture etch. At their bottom, these etch pits lead to a strongly curved p-n junction exhibiting an electrostatic tip effect which quantitatively explains the field enhancement needed for enabling avalanche breakdown.

Externe Organisation(en)

Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik
Institut für Solarenergieforschung GmbH (ISFH)

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Physica Status Solidi - Rapid Research Letters

Band

3

Seiten

40-42

Anzahl der Seiten

3

ISSN

1862-6254

Publikationsdatum

2009

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Materialwissenschaften, Physik der kondensierten Materie

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1002/pssr.200802250 (Zugang: Unbekannt)