Roll-to-Roll Nanotexturisation of Layers on Steel Foil Substrates for nip Silicon Solar Cells

M.C.R. Heijna, M.J.A.A. Goris, W.J. Soppe, W. Schipper, R. Wilde
2010
Light management is of utmost importance for thin film silicon solar cells. For nip cells, light management can be provided by textured back reflectors. In this paper, we demonstrate the fabrication of textured back contact foil on an industry compatible scale. A UV-curing lacquer on a stretch of 80 m of 30 cm wide steel foil was nanotextured in roll-to-roll mode, using the contact imprint method. Lab-scale samples were textured statically to test the effect on the growth of silicon by PECVD
more » ... cell efficiencies. The light trapping effect increases with decreasing lateral feature size. High aspect ratio structures result in strong domain boundaries defined by the period of the gratings and in non-conformal growth of the active layers of the cell. In its turn, this non-conformal growth, with thinner coverage of the steep slopes of the texture can lead to shunting problems in the solar cells. So, a balance needs to be found between optimum light scattering of the textured back contact and optimum layer growth on that back contact.
doi:10.4229/25theupvsec2010-3av.1.73 fatcat:zg4f2qzgzrdr3ke5xa6trwiqyy