Epitaxial silicon growth for solar cells. Final report

Technical Report · Sun Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5624754· OSTI ID:5624754

D'Aiello, R V; Robinson, P H; Richman, D

The objectives of this contract were: (1) to determine the feasibility of silicon epitaxial growth on low-cost silicon substrates for the development of silicon sheet capable of producing low-cost, high efficiency solar cells; (2) to achieve a goal of 12% (AM-0) efficient solar cells fabricated on thin epitaxial layers (<25 ..mu..m) grown on low-cost substrates; and (3) to evaluate the add-on cost for the epitaxial process and to develop low-cost epitaxial growth procedures for application in conjunction with low-cost silicon substrates. The basic epitaxial procedures and solar-cell fabrication and evaluation techniques are described, followed by a discussion of the development of baseline epitaxial solar-cell structures, grown on high-quality conventional silicon substrates. This work resulted in the definition of three basic structures which reproducibly yielded efficiencies in the range of 12 to 13.7%. These epitaxial growth procedures and baseline structures were then used to grow diagnostic layers and solar cells on four potentially low-cost silicon substrates. A description of the crystallographic properties of such layers and the performance of epitaxially grown solar cells fabricated on these materials is given. The major results were the achievement of cell efficiencies of 10.6 to 11.2% on multigrained substrates and approx. 13% on a low-cost single-crystal substrate. An advanced epitaxial reactor, the Rotary Disc, is described. The results of growing solar-cell structures of the baseline type and on low-cost substrates are given. The add-on cost for the epitaxial process is assessed. These cost estimates show a value of approx. 0.46/W using existing or near-term technologies and project an add-on cost of $0.10/W for future reactors.

• Research Organization: RCA Labs., Princeton, NJ (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: NAS-7-100-954817
• OSTI ID: 5624754
• Report Number(s): DOE/JPL/954817-4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140501* -- Solar Energy Conversion-- Photovoltaic Conversion
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
360601 -- Other Materials-- Preparation &amp; Manufacture
CHEMICAL REACTORS
COST
CRYSTAL GROWTH
CRYSTALS
DATA
DATA FORMS
DIRECT ENERGY CONVERTERS
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELEMENTS
EPITAXY
EVALUATION
FABRICATION
GRAPHS
INFORMATION
LAYERS
MONOCRYSTALS
PERFORMANCE
PHOTOELECTRIC CELLS
PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
POLYCRYSTALS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SEMIMETALS
SHEETS
SILICON
SILICON SOLAR CELLS
SOLAR CELLS
SPECTRAL RESPONSE
SUBSTRATES