Localized Poly-Si Rear Contacts for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Geometry Versus Passivation

Abstract

This dataset accompanies the article "Localized Poly-Si Rear Contacts for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Geometry Versus Passivation" (G S Ahathiyan et al., Physica Scripta, manuscript PHYSSCR-155766). It contains the inputs, raw outputs and processed results of three-dimensional device simulations of eleven rear-contact architectures for a 150 µm p-type crystalline silicon solar cell. The simulations were performed with Synopsys Sentaurus (Workbench and Sentaurus Device, version 2023.12). The architectures cover: localized, size-matched poly-Si contacts at 0.16 %, 0.4 %, 4 %, 9 % and 12 % rear coverage; a laterally shifted 0.4 % contact; a 10 % stripe contact; a localized aluminium contact without poly-Si; a poly-Si patch larger than the metal contact; a full-area poly-Si contact; a full-area aluminium back-surface-field contact. Each structure was simulated with the same optical generation, absorber and front structure, and the poly-Si thickness was swept from 5 to 75 nm. Contents simulations/: for each architecture, the Sentaurus Structure Editor and Sentaurus Device command files, the device output files (.plt) for each poly-Si thickness, a file mapping each output to its thickness, and the Workbench results table. results/PolySi_rear_contact_results.xlsx: all figures of merit reported in the paper (efficiency, Voc, Jsc, FF, series resistance, Auger and SRH recombination, contact recombination and contact saturation current density), the thickness and poly-Si doping sweeps, the illuminated J–V curves and the simulation parameters. results/poly_doping_sweep_4pct.tdf: the poly-Si doping sweep of the 4 % structure. figure_scripts/: MATLAB scripts that reproduce the figures of the paper from the tabulated data. README.md: units, extraction formulas and model settings. Extraction Efficiency, fill factor and the maximum-power point are taken at the J–V point of highest power (30 mV voltage steps). Contact recombination is obtained from carrier conservation at open circuit as R_contact = G − R_bulk, where G is the integrated photogeneration and R_bulk the integrated SRH, Auger and radiative recombination. It includes a front-surface contribution common to all designs. The contact saturation current density is J0 = R_contact / exp(qVoc/kT), assuming an ideality factor of one. Notes The 9 % structure was re-simulated with a corrected p⁺ diffusion window for the revised manuscript; the files included are from the corrected run. The mesh and solution field files (.tdr, about 270 MB) are not included and are available from the authors on request.