Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2006 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | ICALEO 2006 - 25th International Congress on Applications of Laser and Electro-Optics - Scottsdale, AZ, United States Duration: 30 Oct 2006 → 2 Nov 2006 |
Conference
| Conference | ICALEO 2006 - 25th International Congress on Applications of Laser and Electro-Optics |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Scottsdale, AZ |
| Period | 30 Oct 2006 → 2 Nov 2006 |
Abstract
During the last years, the photovoltaic solar cell industry has experienced enormous growth. However, for solar cells to be competitive on the longer term, both an increase in their efficiency as well as a reduction in their cost is necessary. This paper discusses some opportunities of laser technology to realize these improvements. An effective method to reduce costs of silicon solar cells is reducing the wafer thickness, because silicon causes a large part of the costs. Consequently, for applying the emitter contact fingers on the solar cell, contact free laser processing has a large advantage in contrast to commonly used print screen techniques. This is because of less scrap due to broken wafers. Additional, many novel high efficiency solar cell concepts are only feasible with laser technology, e.g. due to the requirement for drilling a few thousand holes per second in brittle materials. In this paper, experimental investigations are discussed for producing grooves and holes in silicon wafers according to a recently developed solar cell concept. The amount of heat affected silicon in the surrounding of the processing is minimized. Any unavoidable heat affected material and debris is subsequently removed with a chemical etching process. Laser processing is studied with a variety of pulsed laser sources like excimer lasers, Nd:YAG lasers and frequency converted solid state lasers with a variety of wavelengths. Furthermore, different types of lasers are compared regarding their processing quality and processing time.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Earth and Planetary Sciences(all)
- Geochemistry and Petrology
- Engineering(all)
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Sustainable Development Goals
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2006. Paper presented at ICALEO 2006 - 25th International Congress on Applications of Laser and Electro-Optics, Scottsdale, AZ, United States.
Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › Research › peer review
}
TY - CONF
T1 - Laser technology for cost reduction in silicon solar cell production
AU - Schoonderbeek, Aart
AU - Stute, Uwe
AU - Ostendorf, Andreas
AU - Grischke, Rainer
AU - Engelhart, Peter
AU - Meyer, Rüdiger
AU - Brendel, Rolf
N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported by the State of Lower Saxony/Germany, which we gratefully acknowledge.
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - During the last years, the photovoltaic solar cell industry has experienced enormous growth. However, for solar cells to be competitive on the longer term, both an increase in their efficiency as well as a reduction in their cost is necessary. This paper discusses some opportunities of laser technology to realize these improvements. An effective method to reduce costs of silicon solar cells is reducing the wafer thickness, because silicon causes a large part of the costs. Consequently, for applying the emitter contact fingers on the solar cell, contact free laser processing has a large advantage in contrast to commonly used print screen techniques. This is because of less scrap due to broken wafers. Additional, many novel high efficiency solar cell concepts are only feasible with laser technology, e.g. due to the requirement for drilling a few thousand holes per second in brittle materials. In this paper, experimental investigations are discussed for producing grooves and holes in silicon wafers according to a recently developed solar cell concept. The amount of heat affected silicon in the surrounding of the processing is minimized. Any unavoidable heat affected material and debris is subsequently removed with a chemical etching process. Laser processing is studied with a variety of pulsed laser sources like excimer lasers, Nd:YAG lasers and frequency converted solid state lasers with a variety of wavelengths. Furthermore, different types of lasers are compared regarding their processing quality and processing time.
AB - During the last years, the photovoltaic solar cell industry has experienced enormous growth. However, for solar cells to be competitive on the longer term, both an increase in their efficiency as well as a reduction in their cost is necessary. This paper discusses some opportunities of laser technology to realize these improvements. An effective method to reduce costs of silicon solar cells is reducing the wafer thickness, because silicon causes a large part of the costs. Consequently, for applying the emitter contact fingers on the solar cell, contact free laser processing has a large advantage in contrast to commonly used print screen techniques. This is because of less scrap due to broken wafers. Additional, many novel high efficiency solar cell concepts are only feasible with laser technology, e.g. due to the requirement for drilling a few thousand holes per second in brittle materials. In this paper, experimental investigations are discussed for producing grooves and holes in silicon wafers according to a recently developed solar cell concept. The amount of heat affected silicon in the surrounding of the processing is minimized. Any unavoidable heat affected material and debris is subsequently removed with a chemical etching process. Laser processing is studied with a variety of pulsed laser sources like excimer lasers, Nd:YAG lasers and frequency converted solid state lasers with a variety of wavelengths. Furthermore, different types of lasers are compared regarding their processing quality and processing time.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=56749164784&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2351/1.5060907
DO - 10.2351/1.5060907
M3 - Paper
AN - SCOPUS:56749164784
T2 - ICALEO 2006 - 25th International Congress on Applications of Laser and Electro-Optics
Y2 - 30 October 2006 through 2 November 2006
ER -