Self-aligned selective-emitter plasma-etchback and passivation process for screen-printed silicon solar cells
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- New Mexico Univ., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Solarex Corp., Frederick, MD (United States)
We studied whether plasma-etching techniques can use screen printed gridlines as etch masks to form self-aligned, patterned-emitter profiles on multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) cells from Solarex Our initial results found a statistically significant improvement of about half an absolute percentage point m cell efficiency when the self-aligned emitter etchback was combined with a PECVD-nitride surface passivation treatment. Some additional improvement in bulk diffusion length was observed when a hydrogen passivation treatment was used in the process. We attempted to gain additional benefits from using an extra-heavy phosphorus emitter diffusion before the gridlines were deposited. However, this required a lusher plasma-etch power to etch back the deeper diffusion and keep the etch time reasonably short. The higher power etch may have damaged the surface and the gridlines so that improvement due to surface passive and reduced gridline contact resistance was inhibited.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 393300
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-96-2398C; CONF-961112-1; ON: DE97000174
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 9. international photovoltaic science and engineering conference, Miyazaki (Japan), 11-15 Nov 1996; Other Information: PBD: [1996]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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