Investigation of RTP and belt fired screen printed AL-BSF on textured and planar back surfaces of silicon solar cells

Author

Meemongkolkiat, V. ; Hilali, M. ; Rohatgi, A.

Author_Institution

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

Volume

2

fYear

2003

fDate

18-18 May 2003

Firstpage

1467

Abstract

Quality of screen printed (SP) Al-BSF on textured and planar back surfaces was assessed by fabricating and analyzing Si solar cells. BSF was formed by firing SP-Al in a conventional belt furnace as well as in an RTP system. I-V and IQE measurements revealed that the BSF formed on a textured surface by belt firing had the poorest quality. Belt BSF on the planar back resulted in 15 mV higher V/sub oc/. In contrast to the belt BSF, RTP BSF was superior and showed very small difference (<5 mV) between the flat and textured back cells. The positive effect of RTP is attributed to much higher temperature ramp-up rate which produces uniform Al melting and reduces the influence of surface condition. In contrast, slow ramp-up in belt produces non-uniform BSF even on a planar surface. This effect gets worse on textured surfaces.

Keywords

aluminium; elemental semiconductors; etching; firing (materials); melting; rapid thermal processing; semiconductor-metal boundaries; silicon; solar cells; surface texture; thick films; 15 mV; Al melting; I-V measurement; RTP; Si-Al; belt firing; higher temperature rampup rate; internal quantum efficiency; nonuniform back surface field; planar back surface; screen printed Al back surface field; silicon solar cells; surface condition influence; textured back surface;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 2003. Proceedings of 3rd World Conference on

Conference_Location

Osaka, Japan

Print_ISBN

4-9901816-0-3

Type

conf

Filename

1306201