A Grain Orientation-Independent Single-Step Saw Damage Gettering/Wet texturing Process for Efficient Silicon Solar...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Photovoltaics
• Semiconductor Manufacturing

Background:

• Improving solar cell efficiency requires enhancing electrical and optical properties.
• Previous research focused on separate gettering and texturing techniques.
• Diamond wire sawing (DWS) is a method used for silicon wafer manufacturing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel combined method: saw damage gettering with texturing.
• To demonstrate the applicability of this method on multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers.
• To improve the quality and performance of solar cells manufactured using DWS mc-Si wafers.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing saw damage sites on mc-Si wafers for metal impurity gettering during annealing.
• Crystallizing amorphous silicon generated during sawing for subsequent acid-based wet texturing.
• Applying a 10-minute annealing process combined with texturing.

Main Results:

• Effective removal of metal impurities from DWS mc-Si wafers.
• Formation of a textured DWS silicon wafer.
• Significant improvements in p-type passivated emitter and rear cells (p-PERC): open-circuit voltage (+29 mV), short-circuit current density (+2.5 mA cm⁻²), and efficiency (+2.1%).

Conclusions:

• Saw damage gettering with texturing is an effective method for improving mc-Si solar cell performance.
• This integrated approach addresses both material quality and optical losses.
• The demonstrated improvements highlight the potential of this novel technique for high-efficiency solar cell manufacturing.