Multi‐crystalline Si solar cells with very fast deposited (180 nm/min) passivating hot‐wire CVD silicon nitride as antireflection coating

Hot‐wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) is a promising technique for very fast deposition of high quality thin films. We developed processing conditions for device‐ quality silicon nitride (a‐SiN x :H) anti‐reflection coating (ARC) at high deposition rates of 3 nm/s. The HWCVD SiN x layers were deposited on multicrystalline silicon (mc‐Si) solar cells provided by IMEC and ECN Solar Energy. Reference cells were provided with optimized parallel plate PECVD SiN x and microwave PECVD SiN x respectively. The application of HWCVD SiN x on IMEC mc‐Si solar cells led to effective passivation, evidenced by a V oc of 606 mV and consistent IQE curves. For further optimization, series were made with HW SiN x (with different x) on mc‐Si solar cells from ECN Solar Energy. The best cell efficiencies were obtained for samples with a N/Si ratio of 1·2 and a high mass density of >2·9 g/cm 3 . The best solar cells reached an efficiency of 15·7%, which is similar to the best reference cell, made from neighboring wafers, with microwave PECVD SiN x . The IQE measurements and high V oc values for these cells with HW SiN x demonstrate good bulk passivation. PC1D simulations confirm the excellent bulk‐ and surface‐passivation for HW SiN x coatings. Interesting is the significantly higher blue response for the cells with HWCVD SiN x when compared to the PECVD SiN x reference cells. This difference in blue response is caused by lower light absorption of the HWCVD layers (compared to microwave CVD; ECN) and better surface passivation (compared to parallel plate PECVD; IMEC). The application of HW SiN x as a passivating antireflection layer on mc‐Si solar cells leads to efficiencies comparable to those with optimized PECVD SiN x coatings, although HWCVD is performed at a much higher deposition rate. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.