The analysis of Auger-corrected inverse minoritycarrier lifetime as a function of excess carrier concentration can impart information about many crucial solar cell material properties including: ...emitter saturation current density (J o ), surface recombination velocity (SRV), Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination in the bulk, trap density, band bending, surface Fermi-level pinning, and bandgap narrowing. This work demonstrates TaO x as a potential electron selective contact and passivation layer on silicon. Increasing TaO x thickness reduces the measured upper limit of effective surface recombination velocity (S eff, UL ) . The minimum S eff, UL is 55 cm/s for CZ n-Si/ 30 nm TaO x interfaces. S eff, UL increases for Si / TaO x / ITO structures due to unfavorable band bending.
