Application of photoluminescence characterization to the development and manufacturing of high-efficiency silicon solar cells

Characterization techniques based on quasi-steady-state photoluminescence have recently emerged as accurate, fast, and powerful tools for developing high-efficiency silicon solar cells. These techniques are contactless and provide complementary spatial and injection level dependent information about recombination. In this paper, we demonstrate the application of different photoluminescence techniques to several important aspects of high-efficiency solar cell fabrication: wafer handling, furnace contamination, process-induced defects, cell design, and cell process monitoring. The experimental results demonstrate that photoluminescence characterization techniques are excellent tools for laboratory experiments and also potentially for industrial process monitoring. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.