Influence of hydrogen passivation on majority and minority charge carrier mobilities in ribbon silicon

Multicrystalline silicon materials and ribbons in particular contain a higher amount of defects as compared to monocrystalline silicon, which have to be passivated during solar cell processing in order to reach satisfactory cell efficiencies. Within the solar cell process, this is usually carried out via the deposition of a hydrogen-rich SiNx layer and a following firing step. During passivation, the electronic properties of the materials (conductivity, mobility) can change which might have an influence on the optimised parameters like emitter sheet resistance and grid geometry. This paper deals with the impact of hydrogen passivation on the electronic properties of majority and minority charge carriers in ribbon silicon materials. Majority charge carrier mobilities resulting from Hall measurements are strongly increasing after hydrogenation especially at temperatures below 300 K. Even at room temperature, changes in mobility up to a factor of 2 have been observed. For the determination of minority charge carrier mobilities in processed solar cells, a new method is presented based on spatially resolved internal quantum efficiency and lifetime measurements. It allows the calculation of mapped mobilities especially in materials showing small diffusion lengths. The same reductions in mobility of a factor 2–3 as compared to monocrystalline silicon for both majority and minority charge carriers could be detected in RGS silicon.