Surface Passivation of Boron Emitters on n-Type Silicon Solar Cells

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

Existence of H was found and they diffused into the Si interface. Very classical work. But not bad!

It brings very limited knowledge to the Si solar cell community while all things written here are well known. But authors did the effort to show such progress in experimentally which is not impressive but publishable. Data are correct and consistent. Authors should talk about defect structures in more detail.

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Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript entitled Surface Passivation of Boron Emitters on n-type Silicon Solar Cells deals mainly with the difference in surface passivation of Cz-Si, n-type samples annealed before and after SiNx deposition process. Passivation phenomena of silicon structures for photovoltaic applications is well known and many studies can be easily found in the literature. For this reason it would be profitable to emphasize the novelty of presented findings including the newest published papers. Pay attention that literature cited is not up-to-date. Literature review should be updated.

Moreover, Authors present implied open circuit voltage as an indicator of passivation quality. What about effective carrier lifetime (which is mentioned in line 66) or saturation current density ?

What is the reason of negative charge density measurements for only one temperature value (500°C)? Why not to use similar temperature range as in Fig. 3 ?

Sentence ‘According to many authors’ reports’ (line 116) should be supported by the literature. Presented results should be compared with others researches. Conclusions section should be supported by the results.

Figure 3 should be used instead of Figure 2 in line 75. All variables should be italic (ex. Voc lines: 43, 79,80 and others)  Shortcuts (C-V, APT, EELS) in abstract should be explained. Qf in line 83 should be explained. Pay attention to keep space between value and unit (lines: 50, 59, 60 others). Line 74: ‘Implied’ instead of ‘implied’ should be used.

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Reviewer 3 Report

The authors investigated the passivation characteristic of Al2O3/SiNx stack layers analyzing hydrogen migration by comparing data between the pre-annealing and post annealing treatment. To confirm the field-effect passivation the negative fixed charge due to the heat treatment has been measured and it was confirmed that the charge increases due to the structural change from octahedral to tetrahedral environment. The authors present a detailed comparison analysis, including TEM characterizations, to confirm the effect of the chemical passivation.

The manuscript is well written in proper English. Discussion is sometimes short but clear. Conclusions section may be revised for some repetitions.

The article actually provides results in the field of silicon-based solar cells but in order to evaluate the real contribution in the research area and to ensure the completion of the work it could be useful and perhaps also necessary to test the passivated layers also in a device, for example fabricating a solar cell. This would represent the worthy conclusion of the reported data.

At this stage the paper can be considered for publication on Sustainability taking into account the mentioned criticism.

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Reviewer 4 Report

Manuscript #: sustainability-527721

Manuscript title: Surface Passivation of Boron Emitters on n-type Silicon Solar Cells

Comments:

The surface passivation technique is well known for improving c-Si solar cell performance. N-type c-Si wafer is also considered to achieve better performance than P-type c-Si for solar cell application. However, the current manuscript needs more detailed characterization and discussion to give an impact of this manuscript, which is different from other previous research works. If the authors can provide improved manuscript, it is a good chance to review it again.

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Round  2

Reviewer 2 Report

Many of my suggestions have been included. However, in my opinion, the novelty and thus impact of the presented research on this area of expertise is still not clear. Abstract as well as conclusions section should be strengthen, focusing on obtained results supported by values.

Most typo-errors have been corrected. However, there are still variables that should be italic (for example Voc in lines 84, 86). Double check in whole text.

Literature has been updated according to my comments however the order is wrong (for example: [12,13] in line 46, then [18-21] in 101, then [14]-16] in 130. It should be verified.

Shortcut iVoc was used in conlucions for the first time without explanation (use the shortcut earlier or add explanation)

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Reviewer 4 Report

Manuscript #: sustainability-52772-Revised Version

Manuscript title: Surface Passivation of Boron Emitters on n-type Silicon Solar Cells

Comments:

The manuscript is improved and now looks good. There is one comment that should be mentioned properly.

-Why does reduce the iVoc of 600C annealing sample compared to the pre-annealed sample and other post-annealed samples? Pls, add a proper explanation on it.

Author Response

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