Effective Hydrogenation Strategies to Boost Efficiency over 20% for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell with Al2O3/Cu2O Passivating Contact

Passivation interlayers such as Al2O3 are required to improve the hole selectivity of dopant-free passivating contact based on transition metal oxides. For the interlayer to provide low surface recombination as in conventional silicon heterojunctions (SHJs) or tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) technologies, "hydrogenation" strategies to effectively introduce hydrogen in passivation interlayers while being compatible with TMOs are urgently sought after. In this work, an easy-to-implement strategy to successfully incorporate extra hydrogen in the Al2O3 passivation layer is developed. The chemical and field-effect passivation mechanisms of the extra hydrogen are revealed via comprehensive experimental analyses and density functional theory calculations. By implementing H-Al2O3 with Cu2O as the hole-selective rear contact in p-type crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells, a remarkable efficiency of 20.35% is achieved (fill factor of 84.76%). The work highlights a promising approach to improve the passivation quality of dielectric interlayers and boost the performance of dopant-free c-Si solar cells to compete against mainstream c-Si photovoltaics technologies.