Newsouth Innovations Pty Limited

Darren Bagnall

Stuart Ross Wenham

Brett Jason Hallam

Ly Mai

Zhengrong Shi

Catherine Emily Chan

Chee Mun Chong

Malcolm David Abbott

Alison Ciesla

Ran Chen

Daniel Chen

David Neil Payne

Moonyong Kim

Tsun Hang Fung

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

Growing community of inventors

Coogee, Australia

Darren Bagnall