Method of manufacturing solar cell

Electrical connectors – With circuit conductors and safety grounding provision – Grounding to conductive sheath of cable

Reexamination Certificate

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

C257SE25004, C257SE25007, C136S256000, C136S261000

Reexamination Certificate

active

07883343

ABSTRACT:
A solar cell that is readily manufactured using processing techniques which are less expensive than microelectronic circuit processing. In preferred embodiments, printing techniques are utilized in selectively forming masks for use in etching of silicon oxide and diffusing dopants and in forming metal contacts to diffused regions. In a preferred embodiment, p-doped regions and n-doped regions are alternately formed in a surface of the wafer through use of masking and etching techniques. Metal contacts are made to the p-regions and n-regions by first forming a seed layer stack that comprises a first layer such as aluminum that contacts silicon and functions as an infrared reflector, second layer such titanium tungsten that acts as diffusion barrier, and a third layer functions as a plating base. A thick conductive layer such as copper is then plated over the seed layer, and the seed layer between plated lines is removed. A front surface of the wafer is preferably textured by etching or mechanical abrasion with an IR reflection layer provided over the textured surface. A field layer can be provided in the textured surface with the combined effect being a very low surface recombination velocity.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4234352 (1980-11-01), Swanson
patent: 4478879 (1984-10-01), Baraona et al.
patent: 4557037 (1985-12-01), Hanoka et al.
patent: 4920639 (1990-05-01), Yee
patent: 4927770 (1990-05-01), Swanson
patent: 5053083 (1991-10-01), Sinton
patent: 5151168 (1992-09-01), Gilton et al.
patent: 5310699 (1994-05-01), Chikawa et al.
patent: 5320684 (1994-06-01), Amick et al.
patent: 5538564 (1996-07-01), Kaschmitter
patent: 5641362 (1997-06-01), Meier
patent: 6224737 (2001-05-01), Tsai et al.
patent: 6551931 (2003-04-01), Edelstein
patent: 6624737 (2003-09-01), Chang et al.
patent: 6638688 (2003-10-01), Ching et al.
patent: 2003/0160026 (2003-08-01), Klein et al.
patent: 2004/0200520 (2004-10-01), Mulligan et al.
patent: 2 095 904 (1982-10-01), None
patent: WO 82/01102 (1982-04-01), None
You, J. et al. “A study on Cu Metallization for Crystalline Si Solar Cells,” Conf. REc. 29th IIEEE PV Spec. Conf., 277-280, May 2002.
Sinton et al., “27.5-Percent Silicon Concentrator Solar Cells,” IEEE Electronic Device Letters, vol. EDL-7, No. 10, Oct. 1986, pp. 567-569.
Verlinden et al., “High Efficiency Interdigitated Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells,” Proc. 19th IEEE Photovolt. Solar Energy Conf., New Orleans, LA, May 1987, pp. 405-410.
Sinton et al., “Simplified Backside-Contact Solar Cells,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 37, No. 2, Feb. 1990, pp. 348-352.
Gee et al., “Emitter Wrap-Through Solar Cell,” 23rd IEEE Photo. Spec. Conf., 1993, pp. 265-270.
Verlinden et al., “High Efficiency Silicon Point-Contact Solar Cells for Concentrator and High Value One-Sun Applications,” 12th European Photovoltiac Solar Energy Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Apr. 11-15, 1994, pp. 1477-1480.
Gee et al., “Progress on the Emitter Wrap-Through Silicon Solar Cell,” 12th European Photovoltiac Solar Energy Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Apr. 11-15, 1994, pp. 743-746.
Schönecker et al., “An Industrial Multi-Crystalline EWT Solar Cell with Screen Printed Metallisation,” 14th European Photovoltiac Solar Energy Conference, Barcelona, Spain, Jun. 30-Jul. 5, 1997, pp. 796-799.
Meier et al., “Self-Doping Contacts and Associated Silicon Solar Cell Structures,” 2nd World Conference and Exhibition on Photovoltiac Solar Energy Conversion, Vienna, Austria, Jul. 6-10, 1998, pp. 1491-1494.
Faika et al., “Simplification of EWT (Emitter Wrap-Through) Solar Cell Fabrication Using AL-P-Codiffusion,” Proc. 28th IEEE Photovoltiac Specialists Conf., 2000, pp. 260-263.
Van Kerschaver et al., “Towards Back Contact Silicon Solar Cells with Screen Printed Metallisation,” Proc. 28th IEEE Photovoltiac Specialists Conf., 2000, pp. 209-212.
Kress et al., “10×10 cm2 Screen Printed Back Contact Cell with a Selective Emitter,” Proc. 28th IEEE Photovoltiac Specialists Cont., 2000, pp. 213-216.

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for the USA inventors and patents. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Method of manufacturing solar cell does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Method of manufacturing solar cell, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method of manufacturing solar cell will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2636050

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.