New concept of PECVD reactor for efficient production of silicon heterojunction solar cells

The Mirror reactor is a new type of PECVD system, specifically dedicated but not restricted to the production of high-efficiency silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. Thanks to its innovative design allowing ultra-homogeneous coatings of wafers on both sides without breaking the vacuum, the handling of the substrates is significantly simplified, leading to higher production throughput and yield, reduced costs, and potentially to improved device performance. The experimental results presented in this paper demonstrate the validity of this reactor concept. Passivation and solar cell results obtained in standard PECVD chambers are also shown. Excellent passivation is achieved over the full area of the carrier-plate (minority carrier lifetime values up to 16 ms), leading to efficiencies up to 22.8% on full-area 6-inch SHJ cells.