Silicon solar cells based on all-laser-transferred contacts

Abstract

Crystalline silicon solar cells based on all‐laser‐transferred contacts (ALTC) have been fabricated with both front and rear metallization achieved through laser induced forward transferring. Both the front and rear contacts were laser‐transferred from a glass slide coated with a metal layer to the silicon substrate already processed with emitter formation, surface passivation, and antireflection coating. Ohmic contacts were achieved after this laser transferring. The ALTC solar cells were fabricated on chemically textured p‐type Cz silicon wafers. An initial conversion efficiency of over 15% was achieved on a simple cell structure with full‐area emitter. Further improvements are expected with optimized laser transferring conditions, front grid pattern design, and surface passivation. The ALTC process demonstrates the advantage of laser processing in simplifying the solar cell fabrication by a one‐step metal transferring and firing process. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Laser processing of materials for renewable energy applications

“…Figure 9 shows the laser transfer process using pulsed lasers. 39 One of the advantages of the laser transfer process is that the transfer can be achieved selectively so that a photolithographic process is not required. The fi lm transfer process can be achieved through a passivation dielectric layer, where the transferred fi lm can make electrical contact to a silicon surface or can dope the silicon.…”

Investigation of metal contacts for silicon solar cells using laser processed 8 μm thick Al foils

“…Laser transferred contacts have also been investigated for solar cell applications [5]. Recently, we demonstrated an All-Laser-Transferred-Contacts (ALTC) process for silicon solar cell fabrications [6]. All these laser-assisted metallization processes have taken the advantage of rapid local heating without affecting the bulk Si and the elimination of high temperature furnaces.…”

Quasi continuous wave laser sintering of Si-Ge nanoparticles for thermoelectrics

“…Lasers have been proved to be a successful tool for large scale manufacturing, 7 because of their low cost, high efficiency, high throughput, and easy operation. In renewable energy applications, laser processing was reported to perform laser doping, 8 laser transferring, 9 and laser texturing. 10 In this work, thin films made of plasma synthesized Si 80 Ge 20 nanoparticles doped with phosphorous were sintered by a long pulsed infrared laser.…”