The Fabrication of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
Exploring Surface Texturing Techniques
Abstract
The fabrication of a conventional crystalline silicon solar cell involves multiple complex methods and techniques that requires a lot of patience, accurate measurements and careful handling. This includes the standard cleaning methodology, pyramid surface etching, spin-coating, mask applications, chemical vapor deposition and more. The cell examined was fabricated on a 2-inch silicon wafer containing 4 individually diced sub-cells. The conversional efficiency of each cell was tested to determine the ratio of output electrical power to input solar power, this resulted in an average efficiency of 2.49 ± 0.02%. Comparing this to the industry standard of 18-22%, the results differ by a factor of nearly 101. There are many factors that may have affected these results, most noticeable would be the poor surface texturing and contact resistance. Therefore, surface texturing techniques will be further investigated and optimized to show reflectance values of less than 5% and an increase of up to 5.8% in photocurrent such that efficiency values of greater than 20% could be achieved in such a laboratory setting.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
