Thin-Film Polycrystalline-Silicon Solar Mini-Modules on Non-Silicon Substrates

Abstract

A new method, comprising a monolithic process flow and interdigitated contact design, is proposed for the fabrication of thin-film polycrystalline silicon solar modules on top of alumina or glass-ceramic substrates. The process flow is short and simple, consisting of epitaxial growth on a crystallized seed layer, emitter growth, laser grooving or etching in order to define cell areas, base contacting, cell isolation and combined cell-to-cell and emitter contacting. First module measurements showed no losses due to mini-module processing when compared to cell results, except for an increase in series resistance.