Newsouth Innovations Pty Limited

Catherine Emily Chan

Stuart Ross Wenham

Brett Jason Hallam

Chee Mun Chong

Ly Mai

Alison Maree Wenham

Pei Hsuan Lu

Adeline Sugianto

Matthew Bruce Edwards

Phillip George Hamer

Malcolm David Abbott

Alison Ciesla

GuangQi Xu

Lihui Song

David Neil Payne

Ran Chen

Zhengrong Shi

Moonyong Kim

Daniel Chen

Tsun Hang Fung

Li Hui Song

Guang Qi Xu

Darren Bagnall

Valantis Vais

Pei-Hsuan Lu

Guangqi Xu

The present disclosure provides methodologies for manufacturing photovoltaic devices. In particular, the disclosure relates to the use of hydrogen during manufacturing of photovoltaic devices for passivating defects in the silicon and addressing light-induced degradation. The methodologies in the present disclosures take advantage of generation and manipulation of hydrogen in the neutral or charged state to optimise defect passivation. Some of the methodologies disclose use thermal treatments, illumination with sub-bandgap photons, electric fields or defects in the silicon to control the state of charge or hydrogen, move hydrogen to different locations in the device or retain hydrogen at specific locations.

Advanced hydrogen passivation that mitigates hydrogen-induced recombination (HIR) and surface passivation deterioration in PV devices

The present disclosure is directed to a method for processing a silicon wafer that allows improving performance by exploiting the properties of crystallographic imperfections. The method comprises the steps of: forming a silicon layer with crystallographic imperfections in the proximity of a surface of the silicon; exposing at least a portion of the device to hydrogen atoms in a manner such that hydrogen atoms migrate towards the region with crystallographic imperfections and into the silicon along the crystallographic imperfections; and controlling the charge state of hydrogen atoms located at the crystallographic imperfections to be positive when the imperfections are in a p-type region of the wafer; and negative when the imperfections are at an n-type region of the wafer by thermally treating the silicon while exposing the silicon to an illumination intensity of less than 10 mW/cm.

Method for improving wafer performance for photovoltaic devices

The present disclosure provides methods for manufacturing a photovoltaic device that comprise a sequence of annealing steps and exposure to electromagnetic radiation during annealing that allow passivating electrically active defects and stabilising the performance of photovoltaic device.

Method for processing silicon material

A monolithically integrated system of silicon solar cells. A system having a silicon substrate and a plurality of solar cells formed on the silicon substrate. Each solar cell can have an emitter portion and a base portion. The system can also have a plurality of intermediate regions, each intermediate region having a polarity and electrically separating at least two portions of adjacent solar cells from one another such that the polarity of the intermediate region is opposite to a polarity of at least one of the separated portions of the adjacent solar cells.

Monolithically integrated solar cell system

A silicon device, has a plurality of crystalline silicon regions. One crystalline silicon region is a doped crystalline silicon region. Deactivating some or all of the dopant atoms in the doped crystalline silicon region is achieved by introducing hydrogen atoms into the doped 5 crystalline silicon region, whereby the hydrogen coulombicly bonds with some or all of the dopant atoms to deactivate the respective dopant atoms. Deactivated dopant atoms may be reactivated by heating and illuminating the doped crystalline silicon region to break at least some of the dopant-hydrogen bonds while maintaining conditions to create a high concentration of neutral hydrogen atoms whereby 10 some of the hydrogen atoms diffuse from the doped crystalline silicon region without rebinding to the dopant atoms.

High concentration doping in silicon

A method of hydrogenation of a silicon photovoltaic junction device is provided, the silicon photovoltaic junction device comprising p-type silicon semiconductor material and n-type silicon semiconductor material forming at least one p-n junction. The method comprises:

Advanced hydrogenation of silicon solar cells

A method is provided for the processing of a device having a crystalline silicon region containing an internal hydrogen source. The method comprises: i) applying encapsulating material to each of the front and rear surfaces of the device to form a lamination; ii) applying pressure to the lamination and heating the lamination to bond the encapsulating material to the device; and iii) cooling the device, where the heating step or cooling step or both are completed under illumination.

Thermal processing in silicon

A method of hydrogenation of a silicon photovoltaic junction device is provided, the silicon photovoltaic junction device comprising p-type silicon semiconductor material and n-type silicon semiconductor material forming at least one p-n junction. The method comprises: i) ensuring that any silicon surface phosphorus diffused layers through which hydrogen must diffuse have peak doping concentrations of 1&#xd7;10atoms/cmor less and silicon surface boron diffused layers through which hydrogen must diffuse have peak doping concentrations of 1&#xd7;10atoms/cmor less; ii) providing one or more hydrogen sources accessible by each surface of the device; and iii) heating the device, or a local region of the device to at least 40&#xb0; C. while simultaneously illuminating at least some and/or advantageously all of the device with at least one light source whereby the cumulative power of all the incident photons with sufficient energy to generate electron hole pairs within the silicon (in other words photons with energy levels above the bandgap of silicon of 1.12 eV) is at least 20 mW/cm.

A method for creating an inwardly extending impurity distribution profile in a substrate comprising crystalline silicon material having a background doping of a first impurity type, comprising: a) providing one or more additional impurity sources with at least two different types of impurity atoms within the substrate or in proximity to the surface of the substrate, with each of these impurity atoms having different diffusion coefficients or segregation coefficients; b) locally melting a point on the surface of the substrate with a laser, whereby the at least two different types of impurity atoms are incorporated into the melted silicon material; c) removing the laser to allow the silicon material to recrystallize; d) controlling a rate of application and/or removal of the laser to control the creation of the impurity distribution profile, with different distribution profiles for each of the at least two types of impurity atoms in the recrystallized material.

Growing community of inventors

Randwick, Australia

Catherine Emily Chan