Impact of Via Hole Integration on Multijunction Solar Cells for Through Cell Via Contacts and Associated Passivation Treatment

The impact of via etching on triple junction solar cell performance has been investigated for through cell via contact architectures. Triple junction solar cells with standard top and back contacts have been fabricated and vias have been etched through the subcells to investigate the new geometry proposed. The external quantum efficiency, the open-circuit voltage (V
_oc
), the fill factor (FF), and the ideality factor have been measured and compared to those of standard triple junction solar cells without vias. In this way, we evaluate the losses attributable to via etching. Small performance losses from via integration are observed, but performance can be partially restored with an ammonium sulfide passivation treatment. Furthermore, the results show that the V
_oc
losses are almost absent at the high sun concentration that the new architecture is designed for. The source of the performance degradation is correlated with a larger total surface recombination at the edges of the device. The passivation treatment allows an effective surface passivation of the via holes.