Interface Engineering and Modulation of Nickel Oxide for High Air-Stable p-Type Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract

Dopant-free passivating contact crystalline silicon solar cells hold the potential of higher efficiency and cost down. In the hole-transport terminal, one still faces the challenge of trade-off between efficiency and stability. In this work, a H-Al₂O₃/NiO_x/Ni stacked hole-transport layer is proposed, where the H-Al₂O₃ standing for H-rich Al₂O₃ film can effectively reduce the interfacial defects and the high work function Ni metal results in a low contact resistance of 47.12 mΩ cm². Consequently, the solar cell achieves an efficiency of 20.51%, with a fill factor of 84.83%, demonstrating satisfactory stability. This work provides a strategy for reducing interfacial defects and highlights the potential of stacked structure design for enhancing passivated contact solar cell performance.