Microwave induced remote hydrogen plasma (MIRHP) passivation of multicrystalline silicon solar cells

This thesis deals with the bulk recombination of multicrystalline silicon solar cells. Bulk recombination of generated minority carriers is an important limiting factor for the efficiency of various mc-Si solar cells. The microwave induced remote hydrogen plasma (MIRHP) technique has been applied in this work to reduce the bulk recombination in various multicrystalline silicon materials. This work further concentrates on the characterization of bulk recombination with the means of spectral response measurements. Intensive theoretical work is focused on a two-layer model of the total internal quantum efficiency, with which hydrogen diffusion processes can be studied on the solar cell level. Besides the study of the hydrogen passivation, diffusion and effusion on small laboratory cells, the MIRHP process is also applied within industrial screen-printed cell processes