Patent Application
20150207019
The present invention relates to a method for fabricating a crystalline solar cell, where a silicon substrate has a passivation layer and a plurality of local rear contacts on its rear surface, thereby the fabricating steps are reduced in number.
For the currently available crystalline silicon solar cells, a P-type solar grade silicon substrate is used. Then, a light exposure face is formed, i.e. a front surface is texturized, and then a phosphorus diffusion process is carried out to form a P-N junction. Subsequently, an antireflection coating, a contact formation, a firing, and an edge isolation processes are applied.
To promote the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the solar cell, there has been a structure having a passivation layer deposited and meanwhile local rear contacts formed on the rear surface of the silicon substrate used. The passivation layer is usually made of a dielectric material, such as silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, or aluminum oxide. Among them, the aluminum oxide Al2O3 thin film can be the best in effect, which is usually deposited on the rear surface of the silicon substrate by using an atomic layer deposition method.
To promote the reflectivity of the rear surface and protect the passivation layer, a dielectric insulating layer is deposited on the passivation layer. A commonly used dielectric insulating layer may be silicon dioxide or silicon nitride, and generally formed by a PECVD (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition) method. To form the local rear contacts on the silicon substrate, a photolithographic method may be used, or an anti-etching paste is printed on the dielectric insulating layer by using a screen printing or inkjet method to define opened regions. Thereafter, distributed openings are formed by immersing the substrate in aqueous acid-etching solution. The openings can also be formed by laser ablation. In this way, the back electrodes usually made of aluminum may get contact with the silicon substrate through the openings. After fired, local rear contacts with local back surface fields (local BSFs) are formed. In addition, there may also be a choice that the coated metal electrode material is fired by laser, together with the two dielectric layers (including the passivation layer and the dielectric insulation layer) and a part of the silicon substrate to form laser fired contacts.
A prior structure for the local rear contact P-type silicon solar cell is exemplified in
If the adopted dielectric passivation layer is Al2O3, then it induces a negative charge layer at the silicon/Al2O3 interface making the rear surface passivated, and the back surface recombination velocity reduced, and henceforth increasing the open circuit voltage VOC. The dielectric insulating layer 14 deposited on the dielectric passivation layer 13 is taken as a protection layer preventing the dielectric passivation layer 13 from being damaged by the metallic material when the metal electrodes on the rear surface is fired, and also taken as a material for promoting the reflectivity of the rear surface. The promotion of the rear surface reflectivity benefits generation of more electron-hole pairs induced by increasing long-wavelength photons, which increases a short circuit current density JSC, and henceforth promoting the photoelectric conversion efficiency. The dielectric insulating layer 14 may be a layer of silicon oxide or silicon nitride.
In the aforementioned method, a silver paste and an aluminum paste are coated on the front and the rear surfaces, respectively. The aluminum paste is coated on the whole rear surface after the distributed open regions of the dielectric passivation layer and the dielectric insulating layer are formed on the rear surface, and a back surface field (BSF) region 16 is formed through a co-firing process. The silver paste can be coated by either a photolithographic process, a printing method or an inkjet method on the front surface, and the aluminum paste can be coated on the whole rear surface by the same method mentioned herein. After a co-firing process, the front surface electrodes 15 and the rear surface electrode 17 are formed.
The rear surface electrode 17 and the silicon substrate 10 form local rear contacts. Conventionally, the rear surface of the silicon substrate 10 is also printed with an electrode material containing silver to serve as soldering pads for connecting a plurality of crystalline silicon solar cells to form a solar panel.
It may be known from the above that an additional process is required to form the distributed openings after the dielectric passivation layer and the dielectric insulating layer are formed in the conventional manufacturing process for the crystalline silicon solar cells having a high rear surface reflectivity and local rear contacts, and the whole rear surface has to be coated with the metal electrode material. In the case of the Al2O3 layer for passivation, an ALD (atomic layer deposition) machine may be used. The dielectric insulating layer is typically a silicon oxide or silicon nitride thin film coated by using a PECVD machine. Such a thin film deposition equipment does not refer to a low-cost process, counting in the costs of the equipment, maintenance, personnel expense and expendables. For this reason, the present invention discloses a novel method for fabricating a structure having the local rear contacts on the rear surface, to save the manufacturing cost.
The present invention discloses a method for fabricating a crystalline silicon solar cell having a passivation layer and a plurality of local rear contacts.
In accordance with a first embodiment, the method of the present invention comprises at least steps of providing a silicon substrate, being one of a single-crystal silicon and a polysilicon, having one of a P-type doping and an N-type doping, and having a front surface and a rear surface opposed thereto, wherein the front surface has at least a semiconductor layer that has a doping opposite to the doping of the silicon substrate; forming a passivation layer on the rear surface of the silicon substrate; coating distributed metal electrodes on the rear surface of the silicon substrate; coating metal electrodes on the front surface of the silicon substrate; co-firing the front metal electrodes and the rear metal electrodes to form, respectively, front contacts on the front surface and a plurality of local rear contacts on the rear surface, wherein a portion of the silicon substrate adjacent to the local rear contacts on the rear surface is a back surface field region; and forming a metallic reflector above the rear surface of the silicon substrate, so that the metallic reflector electrically contacts with the plurality of local rear contacts.
In accordance with a second embodiment of the present invention, the method comprises at least steps of: providing a silicon substrate, being one of a single crystal silicon and a polysilicon, having one of a P-type doping and an N-type doping, and having a front surface and a rear surface opposed thereto, wherein the front surface has a first semiconductor layer and a second semiconductor layer both having a doping opposite to the doping of the silicon substrate, and the doping concentration of the first semiconductor layer is larger than the doping concentration of the second semiconductor layer; forming a passivation layer on the rear surface of the silicon substrate; coating distributed metal electrodes on the rear surface of the silicon substrate; coating metal electrodes on the front surface at the regions above the first semiconductor layer; co-firing the front and rear metal electrodes to form, respectively, the front contact and a plurality of local rear contacts, wherein a portion of the silicon substrate adjacent to the local rear contacts on the rear surface is a back surface field region; forming a metallic reflector above the rear surface of the silicon substrate, so that the metallic reflector electrically contacts with the plurality of local rear contacts.
The present invention discloses a technology for forming a passivation layer and local rear contacts on the rear surface of a crystalline silicon solar cell, which may be applied to single-crystalline and polycrystalline solar cells. It aims at effectively reducing the fabrication cost while maintaining a high photoelectric conversion efficiency of the crystalline silicon solar cell having a plurality of local rear contacts. In an example according to the present invention, some of the fabrication processes of the prior arts are first performed on a light exposure surface, comprising texturization, electricity doping for forming a P-N junction, and an antireflection layer coating. On the front surface, there may also be a passivation layer to further promote performance of the solar cell. Further, a structure having a selective emitter may also be formed on the front surface to promote the performance of the solar cell. In addition, the front surface may also be formed with a heterojunction structure, i.e. a single or a plurality of thin films with an electronic bandgap different from that of silicon substrate is formed on the front surface of the silicon substrate having the electricity doping, and thus an internally built electric field is produced.
In the present invention, a metallic reflector is used at the rear side of the silicon substrate for, on one hand, reflecting unabsorbed light back into the silicon substrate and, on the other hand, to collect photogenerated current from the plurality of local rear contacts. In some cases where thick enough silicon substrates are used, the metallic reflector may not function as a light reflector, but is solely used to collect the electric current.
The fabricating method of the present invention has the following advantages: (1) the high photoelectric conversion efficiency of the conventional solar cell having the local rear contacts is maintained, (2) the fabrication steps are effectively reduced, (3) the performance of the solar cell is promoted, (4) the machine equipments for formation of the dielectric insulation layer and the formation of the openings at the rear side of the silicon substrate, as well as the expenditure for maintenance and personnel are saved, and (5) the use of the electrode material is reduced to a great extent.
The present invention will be better understood from the following detailed descriptions of the preferred embodiments according to the present invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The present invention is a fabricating method for a crystalline silicon solar cell having a passivation layer and a plurality of local rear contacts. The silicon substrate may be a P-type or N-type silicon substrate, and has a thickness between from 2 μm to 750 μm. However, the present invention is described by taking the P-type silicon substrate as an example. A preferred embodiment of such solar cell is shown in
In another preferred embodiment, the anti-reflection layer 22 is formed after the dielectric passivation layer 23. Thereafter, a screen printing or an inkjet method is used to coat a metallic material on the front and rear surfaces, to form the front surface electrodes 25 and the local rear contacts 27. The local rear contacts 27 at the rear surface may take a shape of a plurality of dots or a plurality of stripes.
The front surface electrode 25 contains at least one of silver (Ag), aluminum (Al), titanium (Ti), palladium (Pd), copper (Cu), and nickel (Ni), while the local rear contacts 27 may adopt a material containing Al. After a firing process, the front surface metal melts through the anti-reflection layer to contact with the N-type semiconductor, while the rear surface metal melts through the dielectric passivation layer to produce a back surface field (BSF) 26 in the silicon substrate.
In another preferred embodiment, the dielectric passivation layer may be patterned first to form openings, and then an metal electrode material is coated on the openings. A plurality of local rear contacts are then formed through firing. Thereafter, a metallic reflector 28 is used, which has a region size larger than or equal approximately to the region of the P-type silicon substrate 20. By applying a conductive glue locally or wholly on the rear surface of the P-type silicon substrate 20, the metallic reflector 28 is contacted with and thus fixed onto the local rear contacts 27.
In another preferred embodiment, the metallic reflector 28 is made contacted with the local rear contacts 27 by attaching the metallic reflector 28 upon the P-type silicon substrate 20 with non-conductive glue applied at a part of regions of the P-type silicon substrate 20.
In another preferred embodiment, the metallic reflector 28 is made contacted with the local rear contacts 27 before firing (usually co-firing). After firing, there forms metal bonding between the metallic reflector 28 and the local rear contacts 27. In another preferred embodiment, the metallic reflector 28 and the local rear contacts 27 are made fixed and contacted with each other by using an external package. In another preferred embodiment, the metallic reflector 28 is formed of a smooth metallic sheet containing at least one of Al, Cu and Ni. In another preferred embodiment, a thin film containing at least one of Al, Cu and Ni is coated on a thin non-metallic plate to form the metallic reflector 28. In another preferred embodiment, after the local rear contacts 27 and the BSFs 26 are formed, a metal thin film is coated by evaporation, electroplating or sputtering directly on the rear surface of P-type silicon substrate 20.
In another preferred embodiment, the P-type silicon substrate 20 has a selective emitter structure at its front surface. That is, the front surface has a first semiconductor layer and a second semiconductor layer, and the first and the second semiconductor layers both have a doping opposite to that of the silicon substrate. The doping concentration of the first semiconductor layer is larger than that of the second semiconductor layer. The electrodes on the front surface of the silicon substrate are coated at a region above the first semiconductor layer. In another embodiment, the silicon substrate has a heterojunction structure at its front surface, i.e. one or a plurality of thin films with an electronic bandgap different from that of the silicon substrate is formed on the front surface of the silicon substrate having the electricity doping, and thus an internally built electric field is produced.
In conclusion, the method of the present invention comprises at least the following steps. At first, a silicon substrate having a particular structure, is provided (S301 in
In accordance with a second embodiment of the present invention, the method comprises at least the following steps. At first, a silicon substrate having a particular structure is provided (S401 in
The above described is merely examples and preferred embodiments of the present invention, and not exemplified to intend to limit the present invention. Any modifications and changes without departing from the scope of the spirit of the present invention are deemed as within the scope of the present invention. The scope of the present invention is to be interpreted with the scope as defined in the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 103101898 | Jan 2014 | TW | national |
