Influence of Laser Processing on Polycrystalline Silicon Surface

Abstract

This paper presents technology of multicrystalline silicon solar cells with laser texturisation step. The texturing of polycrystalline silicon surface using Nd:YAG laser makes it possible to increase absorption of the incident solar radiation. Moreover, the additional technological operation consisting in etching in 20 % KOH solution at temperature of 80°C was introduced into technology of the photovoltaic cells manufactured from laser textured wafers allows to remove laser induced defects but cause the texture to flatten out reducing it optical effectiveness. This paper demonstrates, that laser processing is very promising technique for texturing multicrystaline silicon independent on grains crystallographic orientation compared to conventional texturing methods in technology of solar cells.