Unravelling the Origins of Contact Recombination for Localized Laser-Doped Contacts

Both localized laser-doping and contact opening are utilized in fabrication of high-efficiency solar cell devices. In this work, we present an experimental method to separate the origins of the lumped recombination parameter for localized contacts. We attribute the main source of recombination after laser doping to small edges around the laser-processed regions (j 0,e I 10,000 fA/cm 2 ), while the center areas have a non-negligible contribution (j 0,a ≈ 2,000-3,000 fA/cm 2 ). Both contributions can be significantly reduced by annealing. At the same time, the nonoptimized laser process achieves contact resistivity values as low as 70 mO cm 2 .