Influence of iron contamination on the performances of single-crystalline silicon solar cells: Computed and experimental results

In this paper, the impact of iron contamination on the conversion efficiency of single-crystalline p-type silicon solar cells is investigated by means of the combination of numerical simulations and experimental data, taking into account the more recent results about the properties of iron in single-crystalline silicon. Numerical simulations highlight the fill factor losses due to the injection-level dependence of the bulk lifetime, which attenuates the decrease of the open circuit voltage and thus that of the solar cell conversion efficiency with iron concentration. Gettering and hydrogenation effects are quantified by means of experimental results obtained from voluntarily contaminated solar cells and integrated in the simulations. The results show that iron appears to be a metallic impurity rather well tolerated in p-type single-crystalline silicon solar cells, because its injection-level dependent bulk lifetime, like its abilities to be gettered and to be passivated by hydrogenation, limits its influence on the solar cell conversion efficiency. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.