The low cost multicrystalline silicon solar cells

This paper presents a new solar-cell structure obtained by the front-surface texturization of multicrystalline silicon substrate by laboratory technology and main equipments used in characterization of such devices. The structure consists of an antireflection coating, a silicon active layer. front and back wafer contacts. The main objective was the minimizing the production cost maintaining the device performances. For these reasons the general technology cycle consists of maximum seven steps, a multicrystalline silicon substrate was used, the doping profile was optimized by simulations, the front-surface solar cell was texturized in order to reduce the light reflectivity and the wafer back-side was p(+)-diffused in order to get low series resistance. The performed measurements were in good agreement with simulations and expected results. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.