Fabricating 40 µm-thin silicon solar cells with different orientations by using SLiM-cut method

Abstract

Thin silicon foils with different crystal orientations were fabricated using the stress induced lift-off (SLiM-cut) method. The thickness of the silicon foils was approximately 40 µm. The 1 1 1 foil had a smoother surface than the 1 0 0 foil. With surface passivation, the minority carrier lifetimes of the 1 0 0 and 1 1 1 silicon foil were 1.0 µs and 1.6 µs, respectively. In this study, 4 cm 2 -thin silicon solar cells with heterojunction structures were fabricated. The energy conversion efficiencies were determined to be 10.74% and 14.74% for the 1 0 0 and 1 1 1 solar cells, respectively. The surface quality of the silicon foils was determined to affect the solar cell character. This study demonstrated that fabricating the solar cell by using silicon foil obtained from the SLiM-cut method is feasible.

Kerf-Less Exfoliated Thin Silicon Wafer Prepared by Nickel Electrodeposition for Solar Cells

“…Silicon solar cells are the focus of considerable research efforts because of their high energy-conversion efficiency (~25%) (Green et al, 2015), stability, and so on (Bruel, 1995; Dross, 2008; Shahrjerdi et al, 2012; Radhakrishnan et al, 2014; Kobayashi et al, 2015; Lee et al, 2016; Green et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2017). Ultra-thin silicon wafers with thickness in the range of 40–60 μm are particularly suitable for high-efficiency solar cells because of their high light absorption and flexibility (Dross, 2008).…”

“…Therefore, it is important to minimize the waste associated with wafer losses during sawing. Several methods are available for fabricating kerf-less thin silicon wafers, such as the stress-inducing process (Shahrjerdi et al, 2012; Wang et al, 2017), ion implantation (Bruel, 1995; Lee et al, 2016), and epitaxial growth (Radhakrishnan et al, 2014; Kobayashi et al, 2015). Since it is difficult to form a stable trajectory during the ion-implantation process, the resulting wafers tend to have high surface roughness (Suo, 1989).…”