Freestanding and supported processing of sub-70 mu m kerfless epitaxial Si and thinned Cz/FZ Si foils into solar cells: An overview of recent progress and challenges
| Autor: | Twan Bearda, Ivan Gordon, Valerie Depauw, Jinyoun Cho, Kris Van Nieuwenhuysen, Julius Röth, Jozef Szlufcik, Hariharsudan Sivaramakrishnan Radhakrishnan, Jef Poortmans |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Radhakrishnan, Hariharsudan Sivaramakrishnan, Cho, Jinyoun, Bearda, Twan, Roeth, Julius, DEPAUW, Valerie, Van Nieuwenhuysen, Kris, GORDON, Ivan, Szlufcik, Jozef, POORTMANS, Jef |
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Technology
Wafer-equivalent STRESS 02 engineering and technology Epitaxy 01 natural sciences 7. Clean energy Supported processing LIFT-OFF Glass superstrate Layer transfer Physics Lift-off 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Surfaces Coatings and Films Electronic Optical and Magnetic Materials Physical Sciences Optoelectronics 0210 nano-technology Yield (engineering) Materials science EFFICIENCY Silicon Energy & Fuels Materials Science PASSIVATION Adhesive Kerfless chemistry.chemical_element Materials Science Multidisciplinary 010402 general chemistry Physics Applied LAYER TRANSFER PROCESS Si substrate SILICON FOILS Freestanding Low-cost silicon substrate QUALITY Wafer Manufacturing line Fragility Epitaxial silicon Porosity Electrical conductor Science & Technology Bonding Renewable Energy Sustainability and the Environment business.industry Thin silicon foils Breakage 0104 chemical sciences chemistry Flexibility business |
| Popis: | Utilisation of expensive silicon (Si) material in crystalline Si modules has come down to 4 g Si per watt-peak in 2018, mainly as a result of reduction in wafer thickness and kerf losses as well as increase in module efficiencies. With continued progress in conventional multi-wire sawing of ingots, wafers as thin as 100 mu m could eventually be produced. Beyond this, kerfless lift-off technologies are being investigated which enable wafer thicknesses well below 100 mu m with negligible Si kerf waste. Such thin Si wafers and foils would be much lighter in weight than today's standard 165-180 mu m-thick wafers and would exhibit considerable flexibility and fragility. This necessitates a rethink about how to handle and process thin Si into solar devices in a manufacturing line with high mechanical yield and high throughput. This paper gives a broad overview of the different approaches for fabricating solar cells on thin Si foils. In particular, three routes are discussed in detail, namely (1) freestanding processing of thin Si, (2) processing of thin Si supported mechanically on a conductive low-cost Si substrate ("wafer-equivalent" approach) and (3) processing of thin Si bonded to a transparent glass superstrate. In each case, the main challenges are explained and the recent progress in addressing them are summarised. Kerfless 50 mu m-thick epitaxial Si foils lifted-off using porous Si and thinned-down Si wafers (below 70 mu m) are used as model substrates for this work. The authors gratefully acknowledge the efforts of several people who were involved in this work over the last few years, namely Jonathan Govaerts, Stefano Granata, Menglei Xu, Ergi Donercark, Ivan Sharlandshiev, Shashi Kiran Jonnak, Shruti Jambaldinni, Robert Roozeman, Jarkko Heildcinen, Thomas Kaden, Zuzana Kovacova, Erich Neubauer, Michael Grimm and Kaori Nagaoka. The authors also acknowledge the funding received for this work from the European Commission for the H2020 project CABRISS under grant agreement No. 641972. Imec is a partner in EnergyVille (www.energyville.be), a collaboration between the Flemish research partners KU Leuven, VITO, imec, and UHasselt in the field of sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems. Radhakrishnan, HS (reprint author), Imec Vzw Partner EnergyVille, Kapeldreef 75, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium. sivarama@imec.be |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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