Novel processes for simplified buried contact solar cells

Author

Cotter, J.E. ; Shaw, N.C. ; Hossain, Md F.

Author_Institution

Centre for Photovoltaic Eng., New South Wales Univ., Sydney, NSW, Australia

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

303

Lastpage

306

Abstract

This paper describes two novel solar cell rear-surface technologies for high-efficiency, thin-wafer, buried contact (BC) solar cells. The first is a laser-formed aluminium-silicon alloy process that is suitable for the fabrication of a low resistance, low-recombination, semi-transparent rear grid electrode. Initial solar cells fabricated with such a rear grid have reached efficiencies of 15% with little optimisation. The second is pigmented diffuse reflectors for light trapping in textured crystalline silicon wafers. These materials exhibit high and broadband reflectivity and are potentially low cost

Keywords

aluminium alloys; buried layers; elemental semiconductors; laser materials processing; reflectivity; silicon; silicon alloys; solar cells; 15 percent; AlSi; Si; efficiencies; fabrication; high-efficiency; laser-formed aluminium-silicon alloy process; light trapping; low resistance; low-recombination; optimisation; pigmented diffuse reflectors; processes; rear-surface technologies; reflectivity; semi-transparent rear grid electrode; simplified buried contact solar cells; textured crystalline silicon wafers; thin-wafer; Aluminum alloys; Costs; Crystalline materials; Crystallization; Electrodes; Optical device fabrication; Photovoltaic cells; Pigmentation; Reflectivity; Silicon;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2000. Conference Record of the Twenty-Eighth IEEE

Conference_Location

Anchorage, AK

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5772-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2000.915821

Filename

915821