Hydrogen ion passivation of multicrystalline silicon solar cells

Abstract

It has been recognized that hydrogen can be chosen to passivate the defects present in polycrystalline materials. Technically, the best approach is to use hydrogen ion implantation at low energy (0.5 to 5 keV) by means of a Kaufman or similar type ion source in order to reduce the processing time. For our multiple beam ion source, we have determined the effective concentration profile of the introduced hydrogen, the modification of the optical properties of the implanted wafers and the conditions under which two multicrystalline materials (POLYX and SILSO) will give the greatest improvement in solar cell performance.