Analysis of cast mono-crystalline ingot characteristics with applications to solar cells

Author

Rounsaville, Brian ; Cooper, Ian B. ; Tate, Keith ; Kadish, Malka ; Das, Arnab ; Rohatgi, Ajeet

Author_Institution

Univ. Center of Excellence for Photovoltaic Res. & Educ., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

3-8 June 2012

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the performance of commercial cast mono-crystalline (cast-mono) ingots provided by two industrial vendors (Vendors A and B). Samples were analyzed from the top, middle, and bottom regions of the central, side, and the corner bricks. Using a conventional Al-BSF cell structure we fabricated cells on wafers from each region. Cell efficiencies up to 18.2% and 18.3% were achieved on cells fabricated from the center bricks. Cells fabricated from other regions where limited by optical and bulk properties. In addition it is found that cast-mono cells show much less light induced degradation (LID) relative to the widely used mono-crystalline Czochralski (Cz) cells.

Keywords

ingots; solar cells; LID; bulk properties; commercial cast monocrystalline ingot characteristics; industrial vendors; light induced degradation; mono-crystalline Czochralski cells; optical properties; solar cells; Crystals; Firing; Histograms; MONOS devices; Optical imaging; Silicon; multi-crystalline; photovoltaic cells; silicon; silicon devices; surface texture;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2012 38th IEEE

Conference_Location

Austin, TX

ISSN

0160-8371

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0064-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.2012.6318217

Filename

6318217