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 language | English |
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Article number | 9169689 |
Pages (from-to) | 1545-1551 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 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