Selective-emitter crystalline silicon solar cells using phosphorus paste

Abstract

Selective-emitter structures have been studied to improve the conversion efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells. However, such structures require additional complicated processes and incur extra cost. In this work, we used phosphorus paste (P-paste) to form a heavily-doped region beneath the grid and POCl₃ to create a shallow emitter area. This method should be convenient to use in the solar-cell industry because it requires only additional P paste printing, compared to the case of homogeneous solar cells. Diffusion parameters including the temperature, diffusion time, and ambient gases were optimized. We observed that the spreading of the P paste was affected by the pyramidal size of the textured wafer due to the low viscosity of the P paste. The pyramidal height of the textured silicon surface was optimized at 3 μm to counterbalance the surface reflectance and the spreading of the P paste. The short-circuit current density of the completed selective emitter solar cell was increased, and an improvement of blue response in the internal quantum efficiency was seen while contact properties such as the fill factor deteriorated due to the spreading of the P paste and the thin emitter on top of the pyramid of the textured silicon surface. Double printing of the P paste was applied to solve this contact problem; a fill factor improvement of 2.4% was obtained.