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THE LABORATORY TECHNOLOGY OF CRYSTALLINE

SILICON SOLAR CELLS


S. Burtescu*, C. Parvulescu**, F. Babarada*, E. Manea**
*University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Electronics Telecom. & Information Technology, DCAE, ERG
E-mail: souria_green@yahoo.com; babflorin@yahoo.com
**National Institute for Research and Development in Micro and Nanotechnologies (IMT Bucharest), Romania
E-mail: elena.manea@imt.ro
AbstractThis paper presents the solar cells
fabrication on multicrystalline silicon substrate with
maximum efficiency of 13% by laboratory technology
and main equipments used to characterization of such
devices. The main objective was the minimizing the
production cost maintaining the device performances.
For these reasons the general concept of the
technology consists of maximum seven steps, was
used multicrystalline silicon substrate, the
frontsurface solar cell was texturized in order to
reduce the light reflectivity and the wafer back side
was p+ diffused in order to have low series
resistance.
Keywords: Silicon, efficiency, texturization, light
trapping, solar cells.

The substrates used in this work were as cut


p-type, CZ multicrystalline silicon (Si-mc)
wafers. The thickness of the wafers was 450m
and area 5x5cm. The manufacturing sequence for
the cell fabrication can be divided in the
following main stages:
(1) initial oxidation
(2) boron diffusion
(3) opening of the active area
(4) texturization in KOH or acid solution
(5) n-type emitter formation by heat treatment
in POCl3 ambient
(6) antireflection coatings depositions
(7) metallization

1. INTRODUCTION
Solar cell technologies are an attractive option
for clean and renewable energy generation in the
form of electricity. Several technologies have
been developed since 1950s and many of them
are now reached to a stage of commercialization
[1]. But photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity is still
not economical in comparison to the grid power
that we use today. The cost of photovoltaic
electricity is about 60 $cents/kWh in temperate
climate and about 30 $cents/kWh for climates
with a high solar insulation. This is substantially
higher than the retail price of conventional
electricity and much higher than bulk electricity
price. The main reason for the high cost of
present PV modules is the high cost of the base
material, ultra-pure Silicon (Si) wafers, mostly
used in todays solar cell technologies. Si solar
cells, which contribute 94% of the world market,
are made from single crystalline - and multicrystalline silicon (Si-sc & Si-mc). Because of
the high electronic quality of Si-sc and Si-mc
(diffusion lengths in the range of 100s of
micrometer) cells with stable and reasonably
high efficiencies (ranging from 14 to 25%) can
be realized in these materials.

2. TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS
In proceeded experiments were used
multicrystalline silicon wafers p type, with
rezistivity 0.5-1cm, thickness 450m and area
55cm2. The wafers of multicrystalline silicon
were processed using the planar technology of
integrated circuits fabrication to obtain solar cell
structure of 11cm2. The solar cells surface
texturization was made using the MEMS
technology.
For configuration the patterns of processed
substrate on wafers (SI-mc) was used 4 inch
chromium work masks in order to perform the
lithography with positive resist.
The 11cm2 solar cells were processed in five
versions, with and without surface texturization,
the texturization being processed in acid and
alkaline solutions. The obtained solar cells
devices will be compared for obtaining an
evaluation of texturization contribution and of the
substrate doping in the final device parameters.
The technological flux of solar cells
fabrication on multicrystalline silicon substrate
(Si-mc) contains the next steps:
Water vapours thermal oxidation at
T=1100C in order to crate a masking layer

978-1-4244-2004-9/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

441

phosphorus-silica-glass layer is removed by


etching with fluoric acid (HF:H2O = 1:10, t =
15sec). The next step is the phosphor
diffusion at T=975C/water vapours time of
10 minutes. In the time of diffusion process
was growth an unreflexive layer with
thickness of 1200 .

which was etching on the back side of the


wafers.
For improve the back side wafer contact
these were high doping with boron by
prediffusion from solid source B+ at
T=1050C/N2 [2]. The prediffused layer
characteristics: the deep xj=0.6m and
V/I=4-5. In the next process step was
created an oxide layer of 6200 obtained by
water vapours at T=1000C used like
masking layer in the next technological step.
In the time of thermal oxidation is made also
the boron diffusion in the wafers.
The windows opening in the diffusion oxide
(the active area of the cell) was configured
by photolithographic process using the mask
M1, Fig. 1 and the oxide silicon has been
etched using a NH4F:HF = 6:1 solution with
an etching rate of 1000/min.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 1.The active area chromium mask.

In the active area the silicon surface was


texturized
with
the
solution
HNO3:HF:CH3COOH=25:1:10, at room
temperature, Fig. 2-a,b and with solution
KOH25% at 80C Fig. 2-c, [3]. Texturizing
results in a roughness of the surface, which
perform a longer optical path for light which
has enter into the cell, thus increasing light
absorption and solar cell efficiency [4].
The emitter n+ region of solar cell from
active area was realized by the prediffusion
from POCl3 liquid source at T=1050C. The
prediffusion layer characteristics: xj=0.6m
and V/I=1.5-2.5. V/I were measured with a
four point probe. The formed phosphoric
penthoxide forms a layer of phosphorussilica glass (SiO2+P) on the wafer, from
which phosphorus atoms will prediffuse into
the upper part of the wafer. After
prediffusion has taken place the remaining

Fig. 2. Texturization (a)-acid without boron back


diffusion; (b)-acid with boron back diffusion;
(c)-KOH with boron back diffusion.

In this thin oxide layer by photolithography


technique was opened the contact windows
using the mask M2, Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. The contact chromium mask.

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The contact windows dimensions are 60m.


The windows contact opened over the
texturized surface by acid is presented in fig.
4 and the windows contact opened over the
texturized surface by KOH is presented in
Fig. 5.

Fig. 4. Contact windows over acid texturization.

The last step was the process of testing and


separation in structures of solar cell. The
obtained solar cell is presented in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7. The finalized solar cell.

3. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS

Fig. 5. Contact windows over KOH texturization.

The metallic contacts of solar cell were


realized by aluminium deposition of 1m
thickness by high vacuum evaporation on
both, front and backsides of the wafer. For
metal configuration in the contact zone were
used the metallization mask M3, Fig. 6, on
the top side of the wafers, Fig. 7. The width
of the metallic line is 80m. The aluminium
treatment was made by sinterizing process at
T=450C, t = 30min in forming gas (3% H2
in N2)

The process parameters were characterized by


elipsometric measuring for the growth thickness
oxide and V/I was measured by the four sondes.
The deposited metal thickness for contacts was
measured by profilmetric method. The texturized
surface analyze was performed by optical images
and electron microscopy SEM. In order to
comparing the texturization importance for cell
efficiency increase was used an incandescent
lamp. The lamp intensity was measured with UV
intensity meter model 1000, Fig. 8.

Fig. 8. UV Intensity Meter Model 1000.

Fig. 6. The chromium mask for metal patterning.

The device characteristic was measured with


an characterograph and are presented in table 1,
for solar cells with texturization surface in basic
solution KOH 25% at 80C, for solar cells with
texturization
surface
in
acid
solution
HNO3:HF:CH3COOH=25:1:10
with
boron

443

doping of metal contact on the back side of the


cell and for solar cells without texturization
surface.
Table 1. Solar cells data
Wafer
no.
1
2
3
4
5

Light
power
(mW/cm2)
14
14
14
14
14

ISC VOC Observations


(mA) (V)
5.1
3.7
4.8
3.5
3.8

0.35
0.46
0.36
0.47
0.35

KOH+B+
KOH
Acid+B+
Acid
without

The characteristic of solar cell texturized in


KOH 25% at T=80C basic solution with boron
enhancing the metal contact on the cell back side
is presented in Fig. 9.

The proceeded experimental results prove the


necessity of the texturization of active surface of
solar cells because decrease the reflectivity at the
structure incident surface. With texturization help
we obtain a better light absorption and increased
conversion efficiency, table 1. At solar cells with
boron enhancing doping of the metal contact of
the cell back side is observing an important
increasing of the short circuit current because of
the boron doping which assure a lower contact
resistance with the aluminium layer deposited on
the wafer back side.
From the obtained results is concluded that the
solar cell without texturization (the wafer no. 5,
Table 1) has the lower conversion efficiency and
the better efficiency was obtained at solar sell
with texturized surface in KOH 25% and cu
boron enhanced of metal contact from the cell
back side (the wafer no. 1, Table 1).
The resulted structures will be used to
fabricate an application like garden night light
which use a nickel-cadmium accumulator in order
to storage the day light energy and deliver this
energy to lights the garden in the night.
References
[1]

[2]
Fig. 9. The electrical characteristic of solar cells
(the wafer no. 1, table 1).
[3]

The filing factor FF (FF=Pmax/IscVoc)


determined from I-V characteristic for the cell
with surface texturized in solution KOH 25% is
75%, for the cell texturized in acid
HNO3:HF:CH3COOH=25:1:10 is 67% and for
untexturized cells is 56%.

[4]

4. CONCLUSIONS
The work is an important step in order to
reduce the production costs by minimizing the
technological steps and using low cost materials
with efforts to maintain the device characteristics
at high level performances. The main efforts are
focus to conversion efficiency by enlargement
the absorption spectrum of solar cells, reduce the
reflexivity of solar light and of the series
resistance.

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