Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell Efficiency Improvement by Advanced Cleaning Technology

摘要

Sunsonix has identified technology gap/need in the area of crystalline silicon photovoltaic efficiency and field degradation. The cause of both poor efficiency and rapid degradation may share common roots. Trace contamination at the photovoltaic junctions lead to both mid-level traps and photonic defects. In other words, very small amounts of contamination can result in poor photovoltaic efficiency as well as susceptibility to further efficiency decay when exposed to sunlight after field installation. In recent trials we have conducted best of class cleans that increase the implied open circuit voltage by 3%. In manufacturing split lot trials for both batch and in-line wet cleaning tools a post texturing etch resulted in a cell efficiency increase of 0.3% absolute on multi-crystalline Si wafers.