Dry processing of mc-silicon thin-film solar cells on foreign substrates leading to 11% efficiency

Conference · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:302459

Luedemann, R; Schaefer, S; Schuele, C; Hebling, C ^[1]

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1. Fraunhofer Inst. for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg (Germany)

A dry-chemical solar cell process has been developed by substituting conventional wet etching steps by reactive ion etching. The performance of mc-Si solar cells that have been made by this new technology is comparable to that of conventionally processed cells. Thin-film solar cells have been prepared by applying zone melting recrystallization of CVD-grown, highly doped p{sup +}-Si layers, that were used as seeding layers for the growth of the active Si-layers. Graphite with two kinds of encapsulation have been used as foreign substrate for the silicon deposition: (A) covered with conducting SiC, the graphite acts as base contact of the cells; (B) graphite encapsulated with insulating SiC- and SiO{sub 2}/SiN/SiO{sub 2}-layers (ONO) leads to solar cells on insulating foreign substrates, with front side base contact. The graphite/SiC/Si layer system was developed by ASE; ONO deposition and recrystallization were realized at Fraunhofer ISE. Applying dry solar cell technology conversion efficiencies up to 11% were achieved.

• OSTI ID: 302459
• Report Number(s): CONF-970953--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ETCHING
FABRICATION
GRAPHITE
SILICON
SILICON CARBIDES
SILICON NITRIDES
SILICON OXIDES
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
SUBSTRATES