Interaction between post wire saw cleaning and the subsequent cell fabrication saw damage etch and texturing process

Quality control method based on photoluminescence imaging for the performance prediction of c-Si/a-Si:H heterojunction solar cells in industrial production lines

“…The composition of such contamination has not been investigated but it probably consists of traces coming from the cooling fluid and/or the diamond plated filaments used for wafer sawing. Such sources of contamination may inhibit or modify the KOH/IPA etching process [1,2]. By satisfactorily removing such contamination, the observed wafers texture alterations and G d diminished as well.…”

“…However, some intra-grain defects are revealed only after the solar cells have been processed like for instance, certain impurity clusters responsible for Shockley-ReadHall (SRH) recombination currents in the device. In particular, wire sawing of mono-and/or multi-crystalline Si bricks used for the production of Si wafers is a key step wherein the sliced wafers surface is impregnated with residues of cutting fluid slurry or metallic species coming from the wire saw [1,2]. This kind of contamination is highly detrimental for the solar cell fill factor (FF) and therefore, a cleaning step prior to any deposition process is crucial to achieve high device efficiencies.…”