0.4% absolute efficiency increase for inline-diffused screen-printed multicrystalline silicon wafer solar cells by non-acidic deep emitter etch-back

Emitter formation is one of the most critical and crucial process steps in the fabrication of standard silicon wafer solar cells. Typically the photovoltaic industry uses tube based phosphorus diffusion, using phosphorus oxychloride as the dopant source. Alternately, a low-cost inline diffusion using phosphoric acid as a dopant source can be used. However, proper process conditions must be used to meet solar cell energy conversion efficiencies obtained by tube diffusion. In this work, we present the application of a non-acidic homogeneous emitter etch-back process - the 'SERIS etch' - for inline-diffused emitters in order to raise the efficiency of multicrystalline silicon (multi-Si) wafer solar cells. We apply both light and heavy emitter etch-backs on inline-diffused emitters with sheet resistance (Rag) values in the 4060 Omega/sq range to achieve emitters with a target R-aq of similar to 70 Omega/sq. The emitter surface reflectance and doping uniformity are maintained even after an etch-back that results in a Rag change of similar to 30 Omega/sq. An average cell efficiency gain of 0.4% (absolute) is reported for cells with heavy etch-back when compared to the as-diffused non-etch-back screen-printed full-area aluminum back surface field solar cells and efficiencies up to 17.9% are achieved. Besides, best lot of the etch-back inline-diffused cells shows a 0.2% (absolute) efficiency gain over the standard tube-diffused cells. These results show that the 'SERIS etch' etch-back process can enable higher-efficiency industrial inline-diffused multi-Si wafer solar cells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.