Prospects of Microwave Heating in Silicon Solar Cell Fabrication – A Review

Abstract

Solar energy is only renewable energy source that does not depend on earth's resources. Current industrial manufacturing of solar cells use manufacturing steps that have many sustainable issues. So it becomes very important to promote technologies that are more sustainable than current state of the art. This paper will look into prospects of microwave heating for silicon solar cell fabrication in this perspective. Microwave heating is very different from conventional heating techniques and application of microwave for semiconductor processing purposes has many advantages. It provides avenue to crystallisation of amorphous solids, reduction of defects, selective heating, reduction in processing time, sintering of powdered materials and so on. Sustainability analysis of microwave heating over conventional heating will be presented to judge its suitability in solar cell fabrication. Status of different technologies using microwave heating which could replace or assist in different fabrication steps of solar cells will be reviewed. Based on these reviews, possible fabrication schemes of silicon solar cells will be presented.

3D Modelling of Temperature Dependent Power Distribution During Microwave Annealing of Doped c-Si

“…Variation of complex part of relative dielectric function with doping concentration and temperature as described by (1) to (4) is shown in the Fig. 3.…”

“…Microwave heating is one such sustainable technology which could be adopted for manufacturing of solar cells. Many such schemes have been identified in the recent past and recrystallized silicon solar cell using microwave annealing is one such technique [1]. The concept calls for ion implantation of doped c-Si wafer to form p-n junction.…”

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis and Processing of Al-Doped, Ga-Doped, and Al, Ga Codoped ZnO for the Pursuit of Optimal Conductivity for Transparent Conducting Film Fabrication

“…The microwave-assisted annealing was carried out using a microwave oven (Microwave research Applications Inc. BP-211/50, USA) operating at 2.45 GHz frequency with a maximum power of 3000 W. The microwave heat treatment was facilitated by using SiC susceptor tiles, placed on both sides of the doped ZnO pellets. The heat loss was minimized by shielding the sample within thermally insulating blocks. , The pellets, SiC tiles, and insulating blocks were placed inside a custom-made quartz vessel fitted with a gas inlet and outlet and a zirconium oxide window to allow monitoring of the temperature using an IR thermometer. Prior to the microwave annealing, the quartz vessel containing the TCO pellet was purged with the 5% H 2 /N 2 gas mixture at 1825 mL min –1 (BOC, UK) for 5 min.…”

Full wafer 3D modelling of power distribution during microwave annealing of doped c-Si

“…Other advantages of microwave annealing in semiconductor processing includes selective heating, defect elimination in ion implanted silicon, and dopant activation [2][3]. Microwave annealing is a sustainable technology and it is particularly useful for recrystallised solar cells [4]. Large bandgap and narrow bandgap semiconductor processing using microwave annealing has been reported [5][6], but not widely.…”