Novel Double Acidic Texturing Process for Saw-Damage-Free Kerfless Multicrystalline Silicon Wafers

Yujin Jung, Soohyun Bae, Hae Seok Lee, Donghwan Kim, Yoon Mook Kang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Since the kerfless wafer method for manufacturing multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers does not involve a sawing process, there occurs no saw damage on the surface, and the product is characterized by a flat surface morphology. These wafers cannot be effectively textured under the conditions of a conventional acidic etching solution with stability or efficiency because the surfaces are free of the surface damage caused by sawing. The texturing process developed in this article uses a conventional acidic etching solution without additives and a metal catalyst; the resulting process is a novel double acidic texturing (DAT) process capable of texturing using hydrofluoric acid (HF), HNO3, CH3COOH, and deionized water. The kerfless wafers treated with this novel texturing treatment had a weighted average reflectance (Rw) of 25.40%, which is ∼5.76% less than that of kerfless wafers textured under conventional acidic texturing conditions (Rw = ∼31.16%). A solar cell manufactured with the new DAT process showed an enhanced short-circuit current density (+2.65 mA·cm-2), fill factor (+3.87%), and efficiency (+2.18%) than those of a cell fabricated without using this novel double treatment.

Original languageEnglish
Article number9169689
Pages (from-to)1545-1551
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume10
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020 Nov

Keywords

  • Acidic etching
  • Kerfless silicon texturing
  • Kerfless wafer
  • acidic texturing
  • additive-free texturing
  • multicrystalline texturing
  • silicon texturing
  • solar cell
  • solar cell texturing
  • surface texture
  • surface treatment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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