A Round Robin-Highliting on the Passivating Contact Technology

The aim of this work is to demonstrate the maturity of the TOPCon technology by conducting a round-robin on symmetrically processed lifetime samples in the leading European PV institutes EPFL, ISC, CEA-INES, ISFH, IMEC and Fraunhofer ISE within the H2020 funded project called HighLite. For all layers, dark saturation current-densities ranging between 2 and 10 fA/cm2 can be reported. Simultaneously, no metal induced recombination for the two lower sintering temperatures have been observed pointing towards a true passivated contact. Furthermore, contact resistivities below 10 mOcm2 have been achieved. It seems that the industrial passivating contact matured to a fully passivated and conducting contact enabling full efficiency potential. The fact that this can be realized using either PECVD or LPCVD from various manufacturer is expected to drive costs down and contribute to the increased adoption of the TOPCon technology.