Application of Laser Texturing in Silicon Solar Cell Technology

Abstract

Recently, a lot of attempts have been directed to increase the solar energy coupling within an active media of a solar cell. Silicon and other materials, which are used as the active media in solar cell, reflect a considerable part of solar light due to a high refraction index, in particular, at oblique light incidence. In addition, only a small part of light is absorbed in the active layer of a thin film solar cells. We present the novel Laser Beam Interference Ablation technique for direct laser patterning of active materials. As a result, a coupling and localization of solar radiation is increased in modified structures. It should be noted that the light-absorbing structures are formed on the solar cell surface without additional steps in photo etching procedure. The proposed technique is under development for application in processing of both crystalline and thin-film silicon solar cells. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ms.20.2.6353

Keywords

• thin film solar cells
• silicon solar cells
• light trapping