Single-Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell with Selective Emitter Formed by Screen Printing and Chemical Etching Method: A Feasibility Study

Abstract

A new method for fabricating crystalline silicon solar cells with selective emitters is presented. In this method, shallow trenches corresponding to metal contact area are first formed by screen printing and chemical etching, followed by heavy doping over the whole front surface of the silicon wafer. After a polymer mask is pasted by aligned screen-printing to cover the shallow trenches, the silicon wafer is etched such that the heavy doping remains at the shallow trench area, while other areas become lightly doped. With the presented method, two screening printing steps are required for obtaining a selective emitter structure on a solar wafer. Compared with existing etch-back methods, the presented one is believed to be able to easily conform with present industrial process. Experimental results show that optical responses at the short and long wavelengths were both improved by applying the proposed selective emitter technique to fabricate solar cells with an a-Si:H film deposited on the back surface. The selective emitter cell with a-Si:H back surface deposition had improvements of 1.66 mA/cm2 and 1.23% absolute in Jsc and conversion efficiency, respectively, compared to the reference cell that had a homogeneous emitter and no a-Si:H on the back surface.