Plasma etching applications in concentrated photovoltaic cell fabrication

Photovoltaic cells are conventionally electrically isolated (isolation) and then separated from the wafer (singulation) by saw dicing at the end of the fabrication process. However, saw dicing presents limitations in terms of cell shapes and causes excessive material losses. We propose isolation and...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	de Lafontaine, Mathieu, Darnon, Maxime, Jaouad, Abdelatif, Albert, Pierre, Bouzazi, Boussairi, Colin, Clément, Volatier, Maïté, Fafard, Simon, Arès, Richard, Aimez, Vincent
Format:	Conference Proceeding
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Current voltage characteristics Electric contacts Metallizing Open circuit voltage Photovoltaic cells Plasma etching Quantum efficiency Solar cells
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Photovoltaic cells are conventionally electrically isolated (isolation) and then separated from the wafer (singulation) by saw dicing at the end of the fabrication process. However, saw dicing presents limitations in terms of cell shapes and causes excessive material losses. We propose isolation and singulation by plasma etching as an alternative to saw dicing. The etching process proposed also allows via hole etching for through cell via contacts (TCVC) [1]. This technology uses isolated metallized vias to carry front-side generated carriers to the backside. This new architecture could increase the efficiency and increase the energy production per wafer for concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) cells. In this paper, those two plasma etching applications for CPV cell fabrication are discussed. More precisely, triple junction solar cells have been fabricated with either a plasma singulation or with via holes and compared with reference cells (without via hole and saw dicing singulation). One sun IV measurements, external quantum efficiency (EQE) and 100 suns IV characteristics show that no performance losses can be observed on cells with plasma singulation. Via hole etching induces open circuit voltage (VOC) and fill factor (FF) losses below 3 % that can be recovered with a surface passivation.
ISSN:	0094-243X 1551-7616