Metal-catalyzed chemical etching using DIO3 as a hole injection agent for efficient submicron-textured multicrystalline silicon solar cells

Abstract

The introduction of ozonated deionized water (DIO3 water) to the silicon wafer wet cleaning process has attracted interest from the photovoltaic industry. In this work, a simple and cost-effective approach to fabricate submicron-texture multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafer is presented using Ag metal-catalyzed chemical etching (MCCE) in DIO3/HF solution, where DIO3 was used as a hole injecting agent. The submicron-texture was successfully applied to fabricate efficient mc-Si PERC solar cells with an average efficiency of 20.31%, which is 0.58%abs higher than those with an acid micron-texture and exceeds those with conventional MCCE submicron-textures using H2O2 as the hole injecting agent. We demonstrated that using DIO3 as a hole injection agent in metal-catalyzed chemical etching is feasible. This novel MCCE approach is simple, low-cost, and ecofriendly, making it an attractive alternative to conventional MCCE methods for use in industrial-scale production.