Abstract
In this study, we investigated the characteristics of electrode grooves formed by etching silicon nitride (SixNy) films using surface-discharge plasma under Ar/CF4 and He/CF4 gases on the basis of differences in the widths of the electrode grooves etched on the SixNy film. The widths of the grooves etched using Ar as the carrier gas were narrower than those etched using He, and the etching speed achieved using Ar was higher than that achieved using He. Furthermore, the electrode groove created by surface-discharge plasma gradually widened as etching time and applied voltage increased.
Highlights
On the surfaces of typical solar cells, antireflection films such as silicon nitride (Six Ny ) films with randomly distributed pyramid-like structures are deposited on the n+ layers to reduce the reflection of light intensity from the solar-cell surface
The discharge current was the pulsed current with a pulse duration of several ns generated by the surface-discharge plasma and displacement current owing to the dielectric body’s electrostatic capacitance
Ar, is used as the carrier gas, the plasma generated along the side of the dielectric body is transient glow discharge that extends over a wide region and widens the electrode groove
Summary
On the surfaces of typical solar cells, antireflection films such as silicon nitride (Six Ny ) films with randomly distributed pyramid-like structures are deposited on the n+ layers to reduce the reflection of light intensity from the solar-cell surface. When busbar and finger electrodes are fabricated on the solar cells, the antireflection film should be removed from areas where the electrode deposition takes place because the film forms a barrier to electric power. Electrode grooves are fabricated to remove the antireflection film from the electrode-forming layer of the cell [1]. Nonequilibrium plasma generated at normal atmospheric pressure can be used to etch the electrode-groove pattern on an antireflection film. We propose the fabrication of antireflection films with etched electrode grooves on single crystalline silicon solar-cell substrates using surface-discharge plasma. The proposed technique is very economical because nonequilibrium plasma can be generated under normal atmospheric pressure without any masking material [4,5,6,7,8]
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