IET Travel Award Report 2016

SiliconPV, 6th International Conference on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaics

Chambry, France, March 2016

Katherine Collett
University of Oxford

I am a second year DPhil student in the Materials Department at the University of Oxford. I
am part of the Semiconductor and Silicon Photovoltaics Group and my work focusses on
surface passivation for silicon solar cells. Surface passivation is the reduction of
recombination of photo-generated carriers at the surface of the silicon. In order to achieve
higher cell efficiencies recombination within the device must be tackled in a cost effective
manner. The areas of highest recombination are the silicon surfaces, due to the large number
of unsatisfied bonds present. The unsatisfied bonds introduce energy levels which exist in
the semiconductor band gap, aiding carrier recombination. Surface passivation is two-fold.
Firstly, it is possible to chemically passivate surfaces in order to reduce the number of inter-
bandgap energy levels. This can be done by either growing or depositing a dielectric coating
on top of the silicon. The second aspect is to reduce carrier access to these inter-bandgap
energy levels. This is done by field effect passivation. My work focuses on developing
methods to extrinsically apply field effect passivation. The extrinsic application allows the
field effect passivation to be optimised separately to chemical passivation and anti-reflection
properties of the dielectric. The work presented at SiliconPV focused specifically on
understanding the kinetics of a particular method that my group has found to be extremely
effective at producing field effect passivation; corona charging.

The IET travel award allowed me to attend and present my research at SiliconPV, which was
held in Chambery, France this year. SiliconPV is a major international conference for silicon
photovoltaics research with attendees from all major photovoltaic research centres. Sessions
covered a wide variety of topics on crystalline silicon cells, from wafer production to novel
solar concentrator and tandem cell designs. This variety gave me the opportunity to learn a
great deal about the present research in the broader field and gave me a better
understanding of the context of my own research. On top of this there were also sessions
particularly relevant to my work and other work within my group. Attending the
conference also allowed me a better understanding of the other main areas of significant
research interest in order to achieve high efficiency cells. Of particular interest was the
considerable effort going into passivated contacts.

My contribution at the conference was in the form of a poster. Thanks to the organisers there
were no oral presentation sessions that coincided with the poster sessions, so these were
extremely well attended. I had several people at my poster throughout the whole session
and was posed some interesting questions. It was a great chance to have some in depth
conversations about my work with the general research community. It was my first poster
presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my findings. It was brilliant to be able to not
only share my research with other scientists, but to also find that it was relevant to other
researchers work and that my findings could be useful to them.
The conference provided a fantastic networking opportunity with generous time allotted for
conversations over the breaks and during the poster sessions as well as the first night
reception and the conference dinner. It was a great chance to meet some of the major names
in the field and have some questions answered by them.

The contribution from the IET travel award allowed me to attend the conference and this
experience has greatly influenced my research. By attending this conference I have been able
to grasp a better understanding of the surface passivation processing requirements that
industry have and it was even possible for my group to make valuable links with industry.
This knowledge will influence the focus of my doctoral work in the future. I would like to
thank the IET for this funding and the chance to attend SiliconPV.

Katherine Collett
Semiconductor and Silicon Photovoltaic Group
Materials Department
University of Oxford
katherine.collett@materials.ox.ac.uk