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Efficiency improvement of passivated emitter and rear cells using annealing process before surface passivation

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Abstract

Thermal annealing and effective surface passivation are significant to achieve high conversion efficiency (η) of passivated emitter and rear cells (PERC). Thus, we added an annealing process before front and rear surface passivation in the existing production line. We found that the front recombination current (J0,f) and the rear recombination current (J0,r) of annealed PERCs are both lower than baseline PERCs without annealing process, which means better defect repair and passivation effect were achieved. And the average η of annealed PERCs reaches 21.79%, which is 0.23% absolutely higher than that of the baseline PERCs. After that, we further explored the influence of gas composition (0%, 5% and 10% oxygen concentration in nitrogen atmosphere) during annealing process. We found that as the oxygen concentration increases, J0,fs and J0,rs of annealed PERCs (0%, 5%, 10%) are all lower than those of baseline PERCs. Meanwhile, the annealed PERCs (0%, 5%, 10%) get the average η of 21.77%, 21.82% and 21.84% respectively, possessing absolute efficiency increase over the baseline PERCs with the average η of 21.67%. The present work could help enhance the understanding of passivation property and improve the performance of industrial PERC cells.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Suntech Power Co., Ltd. This work was financed by the Shanghai Science and Technology Committee under Grant 19DZ1206503.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Hanrui Cui, Ning Yang, Xiao Yuan, Cui Liu, Xiaojun Ye & Hongbo Li

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  1. Hanrui Cui
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  2. Ning Yang
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  3. Xiao Yuan
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  4. Cui Liu
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  5. Xiaojun Ye
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  6. Hongbo Li
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Correspondence to Xiaojun Ye or Hongbo Li.

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Cui, H., Yang, N., Yuan, X. et al. Efficiency improvement of passivated emitter and rear cells using annealing process before surface passivation. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 32, 944–955 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-04871-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-04871-w

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