Title: Sonic Lift-off of GaAs-based Solar Cells with Reduced Surface Facets

Journal Article · · Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [4]
  1. Crystal Sonic Inc., Phoenix, AZ (United States); Arizona State University
  2. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  3. Rochester Inst. of Technology, Rochester, NY (United States)
  4. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Spalling has been proposed as a promising kerfless technique for slicing thin wafers and devices, enhancing the wafer yield from an ingot by reducing kerf-losses and enabling substrate reuse for the case of costly devices. The main challenge of spalling is to control the roughness and thickness variation of the spalled wafers that can be as high as 100% of the wafer thickness. Here, we have shown previously that the thickness variations are largely influenced by the interaction of the crack front with its own reflected waves. Herein we show that through Sonic Lift-off we can offer a modification to standard spalling technologies that minimizes the interaction of reflected waves with the crack front during lift-off of GaAs(100)-based solar cells. We show that the average surface facets amplitude can be reduced by 96% while obtaining a high quality bulk with no discernible residual strain as measured by PL. The resulting spalling depth can easily be tuned from 100 µm to less than 15µm. The electrical characterization of the Sonic lift-off cell shows no degradation of the VOC and a power conversion within 99% relative of a non-spalled baseline.

Research Organization:
Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
EE0008973
OSTI ID:
1843977
Journal Information:
Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Journal Name: Conference Record of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference Vol. 2021 IEEE; ISSN 0160-8371
Publisher:
IEEECopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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conference June 2015
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42 ENGINEERING
Gallium arsenide
lift-off
photovoltaics
spalling