[10a-W611-1~9] 16.3 Bulk, thin-film and other silicon-based solar cells

▲ [10a-W611-5] Formation of fine-textured surface on as-cut crystalline silicon wafers by microparticle-assisted texturing (MPAT) process

〇(PC)Cong Thanh Nguyen¹, Keisuke Ohdaira¹, Hideki Matsumura¹ (1.Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST))

Keywords:microparticle-assisted texturing, MPAT, crystalline silicon solar cell

To obtain the textures with a size <2 µm using alkaline anisotropic etching, we have already established “microparticle-assisted texturing” (MPAT) process. However, up to now, the MPAT process has been being applied to only mirror-polished crystalline silicon (c-Si) wafers. Usually in solar cell manufactures, as-cut wafers are directly dipped into texturing solutions for reducing the cost. Therefore, in this work, we aimed to investigate the feasibility of the MPAT process on the as-cut c-Si wafers. Fundamentals and advantages of the MPAT process will be revealed. Using the MPAT process, we can make the texture with a size down to less than several µm. Minimal optical reflectivity of the textures ~7% can be obtained. After the formation of the textures, we also developed a suitable cleaning procedure to obtain high-quality surface passivation. Effective minority carrier lifetime is ~6 ms which is equivalent to that obtained for textures made from mirror-polished c-Si.